Martin Friedmann Obituary

Martin Friedmann

Martin George Friedmann - violinist, violist, teacher, world traveler, eternal optimist, and adored husband, father, "Opa", father-in-law, and friend - passed away February 18, 2019, age 89, in his Seattle home.

He leaves his wife of 62 years, Laila Storch; his daughter, Aloysia Friedmann and her husband Jon "Jackie" Kimura Parker; his granddaughter, Sophia Parker, his niece Manuela Friedmann and her mother Waltraut Friedmann, sister-in-law Leonie Sandercock, relatives, and friends. He was preceded in death by his brother, John Friedmann, in 2017.

Martin was born in Vienna on March 7, 1929, the son of Robert Friedmann and Susi Martinz. He emigrated with his parents and his brother John to America in 1940, living first in Goshen, IN and Kalamazoo, MI. Several years after the passing of Martin's mother, Robert Friedmann married Betty Stern, who was a wonderful step-mother to Martin and John.

After violin studies at The Juilliard School, he returned to Austria to attend the Vienna Academy of Music, where he met and fell in love with oboist Laila Storch. They were married in Rome in 1957.

Martin and Laila lived in Wilkes-Barre, PA and San Juan, Puerto Rico, and then settled in Seattle, WA, where Martin became the Director of the Music Department at the Cornish School, and later joined the first violin section of the Seattle Symphony.

Martin's love of chamber music and of teaching violin was an integral part of a career that touched countless musicians. He embraced every musical opportunity that came his way, and his warm personality and European musical pedigree were once recognized in unusual fashion, when as a string quartet member in a Folger's coffee commercial he was the only player assigned a vocal part: "Ahhh!"

Martin's wanderlust and cultural curiosity began in 1954 when, with $400 and his violin, he spent over a year visiting Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, India (where he taught at the Woodstock School), Nepal (where he performed for the King of Nepal), Malaysia, Indonesia, Kenya, Nairobi (where he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro!), Uganda, Egypt, and Greece. Years later he visited New Guinea, Bhutan, Australia, China and Tibet, and also brought his family to Bali, Spain, Austria, Botswana, the Caribbean, and India. His passion for diverse cultures and musical traditions was contagious, and he was renowned for attracting good weather, always finding a parking spot, and for his distinctive laugh.

Martin made lifelong friends and remained close with three fellow kindergarteners from Vienna, who all kept in touch in the US for over 75 years. Robert Conot preceded Martin in death and they are survived by Oliver Bryk and Lee Engler.

Martin had a special love for Orcas Island, WA and spent summers there with his family for over 40 years. He and Laila enjoyed nature, and together they performed in and supported the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, founded by Aloysia in 1998. Martin delighted in giving Sophie viola lessons during summers on Orcas, and with her, he enjoyed his second childhood!

In recent years Martin struggled with constant pain as a result of many significant surgeries, but his positive spirit was an inspiration to all. He enjoyed being on top of the news and was often found sitting at his laptop, with his signature glasses dangling from his mouth, catching up on the stock market.

The family's appreciation goes out to the staff at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and the University of Washington Medical Center, and to Dr. Martin Greene, Dr. Celestia Higano and Dr. Zubin Vasavada, for taking such good care of Martin over the years.

A memorial service is being planned for a future date on Orcas Island. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival at www.oicmf.org.

Please sign Martin's online Guestbook at www.Legacy.com.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by The Seattle Times on Feb. 24, 2019.

Memories and Condolences
for Martin Friedmann

Sponsored by The Family.

6 Entries

Victor Lin

March 29, 2023

I´m thinking about Martin today as I reflect on my own career as a musician and particularly as a violinist. Martin was my teacher for a few years when I was in middle school. I was far too young to understand his pedigree and life experience at the time, but I look back with great fondness at the few moments we were able to spend together while I was working my way through all of that repertoire with him and learning that fingering. Thank you and rest in peace, Martin!

Bill Halsey

February 25, 2021

I studied violin with Martin from the late sixties to the early seventies. He was probably my only real music teacher in the sense that he had a real curriculum. Both in the sense of his own life and in the structure of his teaching. I stopped studying with him because I was shy and the violin is the most exposed instrument except for the human voice. Then I came back to the violin in my late 20s and was often grateful to Martin. Now it's my favorite instrument with the incredible things you can express singing dancing and polyphony -- as expressed in the masters of the violin from Porpora Vivaldi and Haydn to Kreitzer and Paganini.

Janice Norvell

April 16, 2019

Dear Laila, I was listening to the recording of the B minor Mass today which you sent me (Shaw ) and my thoughts went out to you. We have not been in contact for some time. I was so sorry to hear of Martin's death and I am sure this is an especially difficult time for you.

Your friend and fellow oboist, Janice Miner Norvell

Sue Gregory

March 8, 2019

Dear Laila and Aloysia and family, I am sorry Martin is gone from you and from all his colleagues that had the pleasure of knowing him from our many years in the Seattle Symphony together. It is sad that only when one is able to read the obituary do we find what a profound, colorful and full life Martin had, including the perils unkown. Martin was not one to brag or flaunt his past accomplishments. I appreciated his professionalism and musicianship at work,knew about and heard Laila, his wife at a chamber concert at the UW, a fine musician in her own right. One thing he did share once in a while was his love and pride of Alosia, whose musical talent was growing by leaps and bounds. I had taken some pictures of Martin,past and present and was able to send them to him. I will cherish the one 2 or 3 yrs ago where we are standing together with my arm around his shoulder and one a few years past during an intermission of one of our concerts, summer white jacket adding a few touch ups looking very spiffy. I do remember the hanging from mouth glasses. Thank you for sharing his life so that we all could know him better. Fondly, Sue Gregory (former Sue Davis)

March 6, 2019

March 6, 2019
We were four close friends in school in Vienna: Martin Friedmann, Leopold Burli Engler, Robert BobbySpielmann, and I. We built the most elaborate marble runs in the sandbox in our favorite Park. We had animated discussions on walks in the Vienna Woods, interrupted only when we noticed Martin's absence. He was usually up in the branches of a tree.
Each of us had a modest 0-gauge windup train set with which to play at home. One of us - not I - had the brilliant idea of combining our train sets in order to have more elaborate layouts and more spectacular train collisions. We took turns meeting at our parents' homes and carried our sets there in small suitcases, rain or shine.
One of the pleasures of being at Martin's home was to hear the family play chamber music. If my memory is correct, Martin's father played piano, his mother violin, his brother cello, and Martin viola.
Our way of life came to an end in 1938 when Hitler annexed Austria; it became the Ostmark in Gross-Deutschland and the persecution of the Jews began. Martin's father, an authority on the Mennonites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonites) , received an invitation from a college in Goshen, Indiana to join its faculty. The college paid for the passage of family and furniture, and arranged for the documents needed for the family's emigration from Germany and immigration to the United States. I received a letter from Martin with his new address before Germany censored mail from abroad.
Spielmann's parents placed him on a Kindertransport from Vienna to England. He never saw them again; they were murdered in Auschwitz.
Engler also went to England on a Kindertransport. His parents fled to Shanghai where his father passed away.
My father's efforts to arrange for his, my mother's, and my emigration were not successful.
I contacted Martin after the war with the help of an American officer (civilians were not allowed to send mail out of Austria).
Spielmann and Engler came to America before the end of the war through the efforts of relatives. I arrived in the US in 1952.
Spielmann, Engler, and I had an informal reunion on the Jersey Shore while I was in in training at Ft. Monmouth, NJ in 1953.
I saw Martin several times while I was stationed in Queens, NY. Martin, a Conscientious Objector, provided music therapy to inmates of NY State Hospitals in the New York area. I was soon transferred to the US Army in Germany. I returned in 1955.
The four of us met several times at Martin's and my homes.
Spielmann and I got together many times. He died in 2011.
Martin and I loved the mountains and met a few times in the Alps and in Salzburg.
Oliver Bryk

Jeff Keith

February 25, 2019

I have memories of sharing laughter with Martin Friedmann at the Ethnic Cultural Center on Brooklyn in the U-District. He and friend Corrine Odegaard would be at The Last Exit for coffee & dessert on weekends and then go to late night improv theater. He read my poems and praised my work! He was such a kind, lovely man and amazing musician! --Jeff Keith

Showing 1 - 6 of 6 results