Sidney M. Friedberg Chair in Chamber Music

Peabody Institute

Established in 1985 by the Sidney M. Friedberg Charitable Trust

SIDNEY M. FRIEDBERG (A&S 1930; Piano 1954; BS 1971, English and World Literature) was chief executive officer and president of the nation’s largest independent bowling chain, Fair Lanes, Inc. He took over leadership of the company at age 19, upon his father’s death. Mr. Friedberg met his first wife, Miriam, when she was a student at the Peabody Conservatory. After they married, he studied piano at Peabody and went on to serve as a Peabody trustee for 10 years, eventually becoming vice chairman of the board.

MIRIAM A. FRIEDBERG introduced the Young Audience Program into Baltimore City public schools and organized the New Town Concerts to promote young artists throughout Maryland. Mrs. Friedberg died in 1981, and Mr. Friedberg made a substantial gift for the renovation of Peabody’s historic concert hall in her memory. The hall re-opened in 1983 as the Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall. Mr. Friedberg died in 1985.

Held by Michael Kannen

MICHAEL KANNEN, the Sidney M. Friedberg Professor of Chamber Music, is a cellist who joined the Peabody Conservatory in 2002 as Director of Chamber Music. A founding member of the Brentano String Quartet, which has given recitals all over the world and has won several important international awards, he is currently a member of the Apollo Trio and is an artist member of the New York Philomusica. Mr. Kannen has been heard with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Berkshire Bach Society, and has appeared at major summer music festivals throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Australia. He frequently performs on original instruments and has recently recorded the music of Robert Schumann on old instruments with the chamber group Context in Houston. He has also recorded new music on the CRI label.