Sergius Kagen (1901–1964)

Sergius Kagen was born to a well-to-do, intellectual Jewish family in St. Petersburg, Russia. His parents were Vera (Lipshitz), a writer-educator, and Isaiah Kagen, a newspaperman. Sergius began studying the piano at nine and soon enrolled in the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 1920, his family fled the Bolshevik Revolution to Berlin, Germany, where he studied with Leonid Kreutzer and Paul Juon at the Hochschule für Musik. Five years later, the family emigrated to the USA, and in 1930, Kagen entered the Juilliard School in New York City. There he studied piano with Carl Friedberg, composition with Rubin Goldmark, and singing with Marcella Sembrich, and graduated in 1934. After Ms. Sembrich's death in 1935, Kagen took over the training of many of her students, and he formally joined the Juilliard faculty in 1940. He became highly influential and important to the field of singing and voice education through his teaching as well as through his writing. He published his important catalog of vocal literature, Music for the Voice, in 1949. A year later, he published a second book, On Studying Singing (1950), aimed at voice teachers. These books are still in print and are still widely used by American singers and voice teachers today. Kagen also performed as a pianist, specializing in accompanying singers. In the late 1940s, he appeared with the newly-formed Bach Aria Group, an ensemble of singers and instrumentalists. He began composing music after 1949. He wrote between 50 and 70 songs, about 20 of which were published. His three-act opera Hamlet was first performed in 1962. As an editor, he prepared 39 volumes of songs and arias for the International Music Company, covering a wide range of historical eras and vocal styles. Kagen married soprano Genevieve Greer in 1937.