Biography Prepared by Jay Siegel (Sam's Nephew)
As a child, Sam excelled at both music and chess. He began having violin lessons when he was 4-and-a-half years old. As was not unusual at the time, a wealthy upper west-side New York Jewish family “adopted” Sam, as a poor, musically gifted, Jewish child from the lower east side, supporting his musical training. Sam excelled at the violin and gave a solo concert as a young teenager. The time came when he had to choose between becoming a professional musician or a professional chess player. His older brother, Max, arranged a meeting with a renowned New York Chess Grand Master for advice. After playing chess with Sam, the Grand Master advised Max that Sam should NOT become a chess professional – Sam would pace the floor, waiting for his turn and then move quickly. The Grandmaster said that his opponents would quickly be on this and stretch out their move allotment time to the limit to pressure Sam into making a mistake.
Sam studied under three world renown violinists, Serge Korgueff, Joseph Calvet, and George Enescu
As a young man in New York City, Sam studied with Korgueff (concert master with the Russian Imperial Symphonic Orchestra for ten years). Korgueff came to the US from Russia in 1925 as a visiting lecturer in music at Dartmouth and a professor at the Institute of Musical Art at Juilliard in New York. Sam played in the National Symphony Orchestra (an orchestra for training students) and played second violin in the Auer String Quartet.
As a professional musician, Sam worked in Hollywood music studios in the 1940’s. He was on contract with Universal Studios for four years before going to Paris in the late 1940’s.
Sam spent 15 months in Paris studying with Joseph Calvet, a professor at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he specialized in the French school of violin.
While in Paris, Sam also took master classes with George Enescu, a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor, teacher and statesman. He is regarded as one the greatest musicians in Romanian history.
Sam was a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) from 1950 to 1979. The CSO had a radio program on WMAQ, Symphony Scrapbook, where they interviewed members of the CSO. They interviewed Sam on January 24, 1953. The biographical information above was taken from that interview and from Wikipedia. You can also hear him play the violin in the interview.