Olga Averino was a Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 and voice teacher. An émigré

Émigré

Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....

 to the United States, she was prominent in the musical life of Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 for over 60 years, first as a singer and later as a distinguished voice teacher.

Biography

Olga Averino was born into a family of musicians in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 in 1895. Her father, Nicholas Averino, was a violist

Viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

 and director of the music conservatory in Rostov

Rostov

Rostov is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, northeast of Moscow. Population:...

. Her mother, Olga Laroche, was a pianist, the daughter of the Russian musicologist Herman Laroche and the god-daughter of the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

. Averino, herself was the god-daughter of the composer's brother Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian dramatist, opera librettist and translator.-Early life:Modest Ilyich was born in Alapayevsk, the younger brother of the future composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He graduated from the School of Jurisprudence with a degree in law...

. She trained in piano and voice at the Moscow Conservatory

Moscow Conservatory

The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...

 and married the violinist Paul Fedorovsky. In 1918, the Bolshevik Revolution and ensuing civil war led the young couple to flee Russia with their baby daughter. They travelled across Siberia to Vladivostok

Vladivostok

The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...

 and down into Manchuria

Manchuria

Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...

. After living in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

 for several years, they eventually made their way to the United States, settling in Boston in 1924 where Fedorovsky became a violinist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Boston Symphony Orchestra

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

; Averino appeared frequently as a soprano soloist.

She was a regular soloist with the Boston Symphony during the Koussvitzky era. Amongst the many works in which she performed there, were Beethoven's 9th Symphony

Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...

, Bach's Mass in B Minor, Ravel's Sheherazade

Shéhérazade

Shéhérazade is the title of two works by the French composer Maurice Ravel.Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie, written in 1898 but unpublished, is a work for orchestra intended as the overture for an opera of the same name...

, Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

's Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, and the American premiére of Alban Berg

Alban Berg

Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...

's Lied der Lulu

Lulu (opera)

Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...

. During her long career as a performer she sang in lieder, oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

 and opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 and worked with many prominent 20th century composers including Ravel, Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, and Glazunov

Alexander Glazunov

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...

. She was a noted recitalist and is credited with having established the success of Ravel's Chansons madecasses in the United States. She also toured the United States in a series of joint recitals with the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky

Gregor Piatigorsky

Gregor Piatigorsky was a Russian-born American cellist.-Early life:...

, where her accompanist was Alexander Siloti

Alexander Siloti

Alexander Ilyich Siloti was a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. Alexander Ilyich Siloti (also Ziloti, , Aleksandr Iljič Ziloti) (9 October 1863, near Kharkiv - 8 December 1945, New York) was a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. Alexander Ilyich Siloti (also Ziloti, , Aleksandr Iljič...

, the last pupil of Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

.

Olga Averino taught voice at the Longy School of Music

Longy School of Music

The Longy School of Music of Bard College is a conservatory located near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1915, it was one of the four independent degree-granting music schools in the Boston region along with the New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, and Boston...

, Middlebury College

Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...

, Wellesley College, and The New School of Music. She also gave a lecture series at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. However, she is most closely associated with the Longy School, where she was the head of the voice department from 1938 to 1976, returning occasionally for master classes after her retirement, the last of which she gave in 1987. It was also at the Longy School that she gave her final public recital, at age 74. Amongst her many pupils, perhaps the most prominent is the American soprano, Phyllis Curtin

Phyllis Curtin

Phyllis Curtin is an American classical soprano who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She was known for her creation of new roles such as the title role in the Carlisle Floyd opera Susannah, Catherine Earnshaw in Floyd's Wuthering Heights, and in...

, who studied voice with Averino at Wellesley College during the 1940s. Curtin said of her teacher:

"Impatient of sloppy musicianship, demanding emotional commitment, she gave me a vision of the art of singing that led me the rest of my life. On the few occasions when she sang, I learned what a great singing artist is."

Her charismatic teaching style was also recalled by composer and critic, Greg Sandow

Greg Sandow

Greg Sandow is an American music critic and composer. He is a graduate of Harvard University, with a bachelor's degree in government, and of Yale University, with a master's degree in composition....

, who studied under her at the Longy School:

"[She] would bring her students all together for a class. Somebody would sing, and, in her Russian accent, Olga typically would ask, 'What emotion does the person in the song feel?' 'The person in the song is angry,' the student would reply. 'But which kind of anger?' Olga would demand, and then sing the opening of the song six times, in six precisely differentiated shades of anger, as distinct as six different people."

Olga Averino and Paul Fedorovsky's daughter Irina Lasoff (1918 – 2006) became a noted choreographer and teacher. Following her husband's death in 1958, Averino moved from their home in Boston's Back Bay to an apartment in Cambridge

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

 where she continued to teach private pupils until a few days before her death. Olga Averino died in her sleep in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 93.

Recordings

• South American Chamber Music (Soprano Olga Averino, Violinist Alfredo St Malo, Cellist Fritz Magg, Pianist-Arranger Nicolas Slonimsky
  Nicolas Slonimsky
  Nicolas Slonimsky was a Russian born American composer, conductor, musician, music critic, lexicographer and author. He described himself as a "diaskeuast" ; "a reviser or interpolator."- Life :...
  
  ) Columbia Records, 1941.
• French Songs (Soprano Olga Averino), Victor records, 1940.

Book

Olga Averino, Principles and Art of Singing, Novis, 1989 ISBN 8789389018

Averino wrote Principles and Art of Singing in the late 1970s and continued to revise it through 1987, circulating mimeographed copies amongst her students and friends. The book, edited by her daughter, Irina Lasoff, was finally published posthumously in late 1989. The final words of the book are a summation of her teaching philosophy:

"Singing is an expression of life, and if you have no time for your life, how can you sing? Quality always needs time, not only in music but also in life itself."

External links

• Portrait sculpture of Olga Averino by Anna Coleman Ladd
  Anna Coleman Ladd
  Anna Coleman Watts Ladd was an American sculptress in Manchester, Massachusetts, who devoted her time throughout World War I to soldiers who were disfigured....
  
  , Smithsonian American Art Museum, Photograph Archives, Washington D.C.