CALIFORNIA – Virtuoso pianist Ruth Slenczynska, who was the last surviving pupil of Sergei Rachmaninoff, has died at the age of 101, following an astonishing nine-decade career. Born in California to Polish parents, the musician gave her first recital at the age of four, and debuted with a full orchestra in Paris aged seven.
Noted for her impeccable technique and musical insight, she played for five US Presidents – even performing a four-hand Mozart duet with Harry Truman at the White House. Slenczynska performed into her 90s, releasing her final album in 2022. She died peacefully at an assisted living facility in California, said her former pupil Shelly Moorman-Stahlman in a statement to the BBC. “Tonight, heaven gained a very special angel,” said the musician and teacher, adding that Slenczynska’s health had faltered after a series of falls. 

During recent visits, “she was particularly energetic and mentally clear” and even “played the piano one day”, Moorman-Stahlman recalled.
“Always a teacher, during a conversation about a recent performance with orchestra, she ‘assigned’ me the Mozart Concerto in A M[inor] to learn and bring to her the next time we visited.”  After another fall, however, she “passed away peacefully” surrounded by friends, including Moorman-Stahlman’s husband, Randy. Born in 1925, Slenczynska was heralded one of the greatest child prodigies since Mozart. A Pathé newsreel, filmed when she was five years old, noted that the toddler had “surprised musical critics by her playing of Beethoven”. Her concerts were “an electrifying experience,” wrote the New York Times in 1933, “something nature has produced in one of her most bounteous moods”. The musician’s father, Josef Slenczynski, was a well-known violinist and head of the Warsaw Conservatory before being wounded during World War One. After moving to America, he resolved to raise a successful musician, and deemed his daughter a potential pianist or violinist within hours of her birth.  By the age of three, she was versed in basic musical theory and harmony – and the family moved to Europe so she could access the best teachers and rub shoulders with the most influential musicians of the day.