Vladimir Padwa

Vladimir Padwa (February 8, 1900 – April 28, 1981) was an American pianist, composer, and educator.

He was born in Kryviakino, Russia, the son of Mikhail and Maria (Schneidmann) Padwa. He was raised in Estonia, then a territory of Imperial Russia, receiving Estonian citizenship in 1917 when Estonia became an independent country. He married Alexandra Niedas of Tallinn in 1927. The couple resided in London and Berlin before coming to the United States in 1932. Their daughter Tatiana was born in 1933. The family settled in New York City and later lived in from 1935 to 1946. Padwa and Alexandra divorced in 1946, and he married Natalie Joy Lozier in the same year. Their son Thomas was born in 1953. Padwa became a U.S. citizen in 1948, and from that year made his home in New York City.

He was educated at the Conservatories of St. Petersburg, Berlin and Leipzig, receiving the Matura degree from Leipzig in 1924. At the age of 17, he was also co-founder in 1917 of the State Conservatory of Music in Tallinn, Estonia.

He was the last pupil of Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin and then studied with Busoni’s master pupil Michael Zadora. He gave concerts throughout Europe, and in collaboration with the Neo-Bechstein company, he was director of and a performer in the first broadcast of all-electronic music from Berlin, in 1932. Padwa’s collaboration with Bechstein resulted in 1932 in a six-month contract with Radio-Keith Orpheum (RKO) and the Radio City Theaters to perform in America on the Bechstein electric piano as part of the Inaugural Roxy radio broadcast from Radio City Music Hall in New York City on November 13, 1932. Before ending his contract in 1933, he performed regularly in radio broadcasts and gave the first live solo piano broadcast of electronic music in the U.S.

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