Ossip Gabrilowitsch (Îñèï Ñaëîìîíîâè÷ Ãàáðèëîâè÷, Osip Salomonovich Gabrilovich; he used the German transliteration Gabrilowitsch in the West) (o.s. 26 January/n.s 7 February 1878 ? 14 September 1936) was a Russian-born American pianist and conductor.
He was born in St Petersburg. He studied the piano and composition at the St Petersburg Conservatory, with Anton Rubinstein, Anatoly Lyadov, Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Medtner among others. After graduating in 1894, he spent two years studying piano with Teodor Leszetycki in Vienna.
In July 1905 he recorded 10 pieces for the reproducing piano Welte-Mignon, one of the first pianists to do so.
From 1910 to 1914 he was conductor of the Munich Konzertverein. He settled in the USA, and in 1918 was appointed the founding director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, while maintaining his life as a concert pianist. Before accepting the conductor's position, he demanded a new auditorium be built, and this was the impetus for the building of Orchestra Hall.
In 1906, he married Mark Twain's daughter Clara Clemens, a singer who appeared with him in recital. He composed a few works, primarily short piano pieces for his own use. He died in Detroit in 1936 and, along with Clara and her father, is buried in the Langdon plot of the Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York.
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