Arnold Juda
1913-1988
Arnold Juda, who died on December 27, 1988, was an honored, beloved and devoted colleague in the Department of Music at UCI. Appointed instructor in piano in the winter of 1966 shortly after UCI first opened its doors, Juda became Lecturer with Security of Employment in 1975. Until his retirement in 1978, every graduating class of music majors included students who owed their various degrees of artistry at the keyboard to Arnold's competence and his care for their interests.
Born in Amsterdam, 17 May 1913, his professional studies included instruction from 1928 in theory, composition, and piano at the city's Muziek-Lyceum, where he gained his diploma in piano in 1933. Studying shortly thereafter with the Polish pianist, Stefan Askenase, he entered the master-class from 1936 to 1938 of the distinguished Russian-born pianist, Alexander Borovsky. With his two brothers, one a violinist, the other a 'cellist, he formed a trio that frequently performed in the Low Countries. He himself undertook concert tours in Europe, Asia, and South America.
Little is known of him during the Second World War. He and his family suffered dreadfully, however, under the Nazi occupation of Holland, losing his 'cellist brother.
After the war, he was appointed resident composer and conductor at the Amsterdam Municipal Theatre, a position he held from 1945 to 1950 and during which he performed his own incidental music for plays by Schiller, Shakespeare, Molnar, and Arthur Miller. Having been selected by the Netherlands government to stimulate cultural life in Dutch Guiana, he joined his country's Foundation for Cultural Exchange, becoming director and advisor from 1950-54 for the “Cultural Center Surinam.”
Emigrating to the United States in 1955, his first academic position was at Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, where he taught theory and piano until 1957. Subsequently, and before joining UCI, he held similar teaching positions at Orange Coast College and at California State University at Fullerton.
He will be widely remembered throughout Orange and Los Angeles Counties for the many solo and chamber music recitals he gave and conducted. A superb exponent of Beethoven, one of his earliest recitals on campus (November, 1967) was devoted to the two sonatas of Opus 27. Among other memorable concerts he gave at UCI was his participation in the first performance in 1969 of Schoenberg's “Pierrot Lunaire”; a sonata recital with his visiting violinist brother, Jo--Concert Master of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw--in May of 1971, and another in 1975 with his violinist daughter, Angela; the Stravinsky piano concerto (conducted by Newell Jenkins) in 1973, and his last major appearance here, Beethoven's “Emperor” concerto in 1976.
He is survived by his wife Coby, and two children.
- H. Colin Slim