Josef Raieff Photo by Jersey PTG. N.Y.

Josef Raieff, pianist and long-time teacher to musicians at both The Juilliard School and Mannes College of Music, died on December 11 at the age of 96.

Born in Kharkov, Russia on July 29, 1906—the son of a paper-box maker, Harry Raieff, and his wife, Anne—Josef came to the U.S. at the age of 10, which also is when he began studying piano. He studied at the American Conservatory in Chicago (1920-24) and received a diploma from the Juilliard Graduate School in 1932 before continuing his studies in Europe. Raieff studied with some of the most famed pedagogues of the piano in what was called by him the "golden age of teaching—among them Alexander Siloti, Josef Lhévinne, Artur Schnabel, Eduard Steuerman, Harold Bauer, Rubin Goldmark, and Bernard Waagenar.

Josef Raieff began his career in 1923 by making several piano rolls for Steinway in New York, prior to his Chicago debut in 1924 at Studebaker Theater and a subsequent performance with the Chicago Symphony in Kimball Hall. His well-reviewed New York debut at Town Hall took place in 1938, and he had returned for six more recitals at Town Hall by 1952.

Juilliard still was located on East 52nd Street when Raieff began studying with Siloti and first began teaching secondary piano there from 1926 until 1929, until he left to study with Steuerman in Vienna and Schnabel in Berlin. Among his fellow classmates were Sascha Gorodnitzki, Adele Marcus, and Risë ‫ Stevens. He studied with Josef Lhévinne when he returned to Juilliard in 1932, and began performing frequently in New York and throughout the United States. He was naturalized as a citizen of the U.S. in 1938.

Read a tribute to Josef Raieff by a former student, the pianist Louis Nagel.

Raieff interrupted his teaching career to join the army during World War II, but continued to concertize extensively for army and civilian personnel. In 1945 he resumed his regular concert career and returned to Juilliard to teach, continuing through the 2000-01 academic year, after which he gained emeritus status. (He was particularly proud of the fact that he had taught during the tenures of all six presidents who have led the School.) Raeiff served as chairman of the piano faculty in 1970-71. Among his pupils are the pianists John Bayless and Kenneth Merrill.

His wife, Mary Elisabeth Raieff (also a Juilliard-trained pianist), died in February 2000. Josef Raieff is survived by two daughters and one granddaughter.