Biography of Hubert de Blanck

Hubert de Blanck was a Dutch-born pianist, composer and professor of music who lived most of his life in Cuba. His parents were Willem de Blanck (born 1832), a violinist and Reine Valet (1835-1868), a singer, who settled in Rotterdam after their marriage in 1853. They travelled frequently throughout Europe in order to stage performances. Hence Hubert was not born at home but in Utrecht on 14 June 1856. In 1873, after successful studies piano and composition at the conservatories of Liège and Cologne, he made his formal debut as a concert pianist in St. Petersburg at age seventeen. In 1874 he was named musical director of the El Dorado theatre in Warsaw, but he left the post the following year. Shortly thereafter he met the precocious Brazilian violinist Eugène Maurice Dengremont (1866-1893), with whom he toured through Europe and South America. In 1881 de Blanck settled in New York, where he was awarded the position of Professor of Piano at the New York College of Music. In New York he met the Cuban Ana María García-Menocal (1859-1900), with whom he married on 24 December 1881. In 1883 the family moved to Havana, where de Blanck became very active in Cuba¿s musical community. In 1885 he founded the first Cuban Conservatory of Music. In 1895, at the outbreak of the Cuban War of Independence de Blanck sympathized with the revolutionary movement and he had to leave Cuba. The family settled again in New York. Here he accompanied several musicians on tours in the United States and Canada. In 1898 after the Cuban War of Independence had ended, the family returned to Havana, where de Blanck continued his musical activities as a teacher, pianist, composer, publisher and organizer. On 19 September 1900 his wife, Ana Menocal died. On 28 June 1902 he married Pilar Martín (1883-1955), who had been one of his students. Hubert de Blanck died on 28 November 1932, aged 76.