Naomi Yanova Adaskin

Adaskin, Naomi Yanova

Naomi Yanova Adaskin (b Granatstein). Pianist, teacher, editor, b Toronto 6 May 1908, d Toronto 1 Mar 1996. She was a student at the Hambourg Conservatory, and studied with Healey Willan at the Toronto College of Music and the University of Toronto. She was also a pupil 1928-38 of Mona Bates and 1941-4 of E. Robert Schmitz. She debuted at Massey Hall at age 12. She accompanied her first husband, John Adaskin in recitals 1929-38 and was known for her work in those years as part of the two-piano team Yanova and (Etta) Coles, which made its debut in Toronto and played with orchestras in New York, Montreal, Buffalo, and Rochester. Adaskin ceased performing with Coles in 1939 and continued as piano soloist, making concert appearances with the Toronto, Montreal, and CBC symphonies and premiering works by Weinzweig, her brother-in-law Murray Adaskin, and other Canadians. She taught 1939-44 at the TCM, wrote articles 1957-60 for the Star Weekly, Chatelaine, and the Globe and Mail, was music critic at the Toronto Daily Star, and edited school music texts 1965-9 for Ginn and Co and 1970-2 for McGraw-Hill Ryerson. John Adaskin died in 1964; in 1979 Naomi Adaskin married the pianist Reginald Godden. She had two daughters (Tamar, b 1944, and Susan, b 1946).