Milton Thomas; Violinist Who Taught at USC
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Violist Milton Thomas, 81, who was active on the Southern California music scene for several decades, and taught at USC from 1968 to 1996, died June 16 in San Francisco.
Thomas had been in declining health since brain surgery in May, according to his former wife, Yukiko Kamei, who is also a violinist.
The son of immigrants from Lithuania and Russia, Thomas was born in Little Washington, Pa. He trained at the Juilliard School in New York, and played in the Cleveland Orchestra under Rodzinski and Leinsdorf in the 1940s.
He also toured with Stokowski’s All American Youth Orchestra. He later studied privately with cellist Pablo Casals in Prades, where he was a soloist at the Prades Festival from 1952 to 1972.
Thomas participated in the Heifetz-Piatigorsky concerts in the 1960s in Los Angeles, as well as numerous Monday Evening Concerts and festivals in Ojai and Carmel.
He recorded with, among others, Casals, violinist Isaac Stern and pianist Myra Hess, and played a series of concerts at the Library of Congress with contralto Maureen Forrester. Composers Ingolf Dahl, Henri Lazarof and Paul Chihara wrote music for him.
He is survived by his daughter, Yumi.
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