Lili Petschnikoff

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Lili Petschnikoff was an American violinist born in Chicago in 1874. She studied violin in Europe, including with Joseph Joachim in Berlin. She and her husband, Alexander Petschnikoff, toured the United States in 1907. She gave a recital in 1916 at Aeolian Hall with Clara Gabrilowitsch and Rudolph Ganz. In 1919 she hosted concerts at her Hollywood home with Cornelia Rider-Possart. She officially retired by 1923 but still played on a radio program that year with Olga Steeb. In 1931 she played music with Albert Einstein at Caltech. She was friends with singer Lotte Lehmann and was said to own a Stradivarius violin brought to the United States by her husband in 1899. Petschnikoff wrote an autobiography, The World At Our Feet, published posthumously in 1968 by her son. She had three children, Tatjana, Nadja, and Sergei, and later divorced. She moved to Los Angeles during World War I, and her home near the Hollywood Bowl became a gathering place for musicians and arts patrons. She died in Los Angeles in 1957 at age 82.