New England Conservatory’s Masuko Ushioda Dean’s Scholarship Fund will provide financial support to promising string students that embody the musical motivation of Ushioda, who died in 2013
New England Conservatory (NEC) has announced the creation of the Masuko Ushioda Dean’s Scholarship Fund, established with generous gifts from from Masuko Ushioda’s husband, Laurence Lesser, and their children Erika Lesser and Adam Lesser with their families.
Ushioda and Lesser joined NEC’s faculty in 1974 while continuing their international careers as a violinist and cellist, respectively. As a faculty member for more than 39 years, Ushioda taught 140 students at NEC. She died at the age of 71 in 2013 following a diagnosis of acute leukemia.
The Masuko Ushioda Dean’s Scholarship Fund will provide financial support to promising string students ’who embody a true passion for building meaningful lives through music and embracing life as an adventure, just as Masuko did.’
Laurence Lesser said, ’Masuko’s work as an educator was inseparable from her extraordinary life as a performer. Her playing evoked a wealth of adjectives—warm, personal, direct, and profoundly touching—all underpinned by unparalleled instrumental mastery. She was honest, vibrant, and courageous, always striving to share her deep love for the music that inspired her.
’Our children, Erika and Adam, join me in hoping that the Masuko Ushioda Dean’s Scholarship will empower future generations of passionate young artists to embrace the same unwavering dedication to music that defined Masuko’s remarkable life.’
Ushioda was born in 1942 in Shenyang, Manchuria. She embarked on violin studies in the wake of the Second World War, under the tutelage of Auer-pupil Anna Bubnova Ono, before studying at the Toho Gakuen School of Music with Hideo Saito.
She won sixth prize at the 1963 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, after which Joseph Szigeti, who was on the jury, agreed to teach her in Switzerland. She won the silver medal at the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and met her future husband Lesser, who won fourth prize in the cello divisiion of the competition.
Ushioda and Lesser married in 1971 and lived in Baltimore. During the first twelve months of their marriage, Ushioda played 93 solo concerts on three continents and was away from home for a combined total of six months. The pair joined the faculty of NEC in 1974, later celebrating the birth of their daughter Erika, followed by the birth of their son Adam in 1980.
Ushioda’s life was a balance of family, concertising and teaching. She completed her last trip to Japan in 2012, after which she received a diagnosis of acute leukemia. She died on 28 May 2013.
Listen: The Strad Podcast #102: teaching students to teach themselves with cellist Laurence Lesser
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