Kagen, Sergius

Sergius Kagen , Sergey Isaevich Kagen ( English Sergius Kagen ; August 22, 1909 , St. Petersburg - March 1, 1964 , New York ) is an American composer and music teacher of Russian origin.

He was born in the family of the journalist Isai Kagen (1877–?) And the teacher Vera Livshits (1879–?) ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]} . He studied at the Berlin Higher School of Music with Leonid Kreutzer and Pavel Huon , then since 1925 at the Juilliard School with Karl Friedberg , Rubin Goldmark and Marcella Zembrich . In the early 1930s. worked as an assistant in the Zembrich class, then taught himself; Among the students of Kagen were, in particular, conductor David Leibovitz , singers Jen De Gaetani , Evelyn Lear , Lorna Heywood .

He prepared and published collections of selected songs and arias by Georg Friedrich Handel , Franz Schubert , Robert Schumann , Johannes Brahms , Ernest Schausson , Claude Debussy , Reynaldo An , Hugo Wolf , as well as a collection of “40 French songs from Berlioz to Dupark .” He wrote the popular book "On Learning to Sing" ( Eng. On Studying Singing ; 1950 , 2nd ed. 1960 ); further editions were prepared by the widow of Kagen, singer and writer Genevieve Greer Kagen ( Eng. Genevieve Greer Kagen ; 1910 - 2002 ). Kagen's Music for the Voice: A Descriptive List of Concert and Teaching Material textbook has also been reprinted several times.

Kagen’s composer's heritage dates back to the last decade of his life and includes the opera Hamlet ( 1962 ; the second, based on Moliere’s play Monsieur de Pursognac , was never completed), more than fifty songs and romances (including James Joyce’s poems) .

In addition, Kagen in some cases acted as a pianist, mostly accompanying concert vocalists.