Daniel Guilet

French-American violinist (January 10, 1899, Rostov, Russia - October 1990, New York City)

In the 1950s he was concert master of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and also a founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio which he left in 1969.

He was born at Rostov-on-Don in the Russian Empire and raised in Paris, where his family moved when he was less than a year old. His teachers at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) included George Enescu and Guillaume Rémy. He played in Quatuor Calvet and toured France with Maurice Ravel playing his accompaniments. In 1941, he immigrated to the U.S. to avoid Nazi persecution as a Jew, and shortened his name to Daniel Guilet. In 1942 he organized the Guilet String Quartet. In 1944, he joined the NBC Symphony Orchestra under conductor Arturo Toscanini. Guilet became concertmaster in 1951, and continued in that position in 1954 when Toscanini retired and the orchestra was renamed the Symphony Of The Air.

Also in 1954, he invited cellist Bernard Greenhouse to join him and Menahem Pressler, with whom Guilet had previously made recordings, in playing informally—supposedly, as Greenhouse put it 25 years later, just "to play some Mozart". As it turned out, they named their group the Beaux Arts Trio, and began playing in public at Tanglewood in 1955. The ensemble built an international reputation as one of the most prominent trios in chamber music. Guilet retired from performing in 1969, retiring from teaching at Indiana University at the same time; he then moved to teaching at the University of Oklahoma. He also taught at the [a=Manhattan School of Music], the Royal Conservatory of Music in Montreal, and CNSMDP. He died following a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 91.