Willem Van Hoogstraaten

Vocation

Family

Dutch musician, cellist and conductor. At age 8 he studied the violin. His teachers were the Jewish violinist Alexander Schmuller (5 December 1880 – 2 March 1933), Bram Eldering at the conservatory of Köln and Otakar Ševcik (22 March 1852, Horažďovice - 18 January 1934, Písek) in Praque. In Köln he met the pianist Elly Ney, who was was a teacher of the conservatory. They married in 1911 and became in 1912 befriended with Frederik van Eeden. He was violist and conductor in Kleefeld from 1914-1918, guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1922-1939. From 1925 till 1938 he was music director of the Oregon Symphony at Portland 1925-1938. In 1938 he left the USA to visit his ex spouse Elly Mey, who had become a National-Socialist. From 1938 till 1945 he was conductor of the Mozarteum at Salzburg 1939-1945. From 1949 till his death he was conductor of the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker. Personal He was born in the noted family (Van Hoogstraten) of artists, writers and editors. His father Mr. Samuel Pieter Jacob Anne van Hoogstraten (‎2 October 1844, Utrecht - 25 February 1892, Utrecht) was the secretary of Dutch Rhine railway company. His mother was Elizabeth Maria van Hoytema‏‎ (27 November 1849, Utrecht - 27 September 1939, Rijswijk). They married 25 May 1871 in Utrecht and got two daughters and two sons, Willem being the youngest. On 3 July 1911 he married the pianist Elisabethe "Elly" Katharine Ney in Schlangenbad (Hessen-Nassau). They divorced 11 November 1927 in München. Willem's career then flourished in the USA. But in 1938 he returned to Ney in Germany, and becaem like her a Nazi sympathiser. Their daughter Eleonora van Hoogstraten‏‎ (20 June 1918, Zürich - 23 March 2007 Tutzing, Ger) married on 12 March 1941 Ernst Rötger Wiskott‎. She became an actress. He died 11 September 1965 in Tutzing. Link to Wikipedia