Myrtle Elvyn

Myrtle Elvyn (born circa 1887 – died February 1975), later Myrtle Elvyn-Bloch, was an American pianist and composer. Early life Myrtle Elvyn was born in Sherman, Texas and raised in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Edward Elvyn and Fannie M. Goldsmith Elvyn. Her parents were from Arkansas and Kentucky. Theatrical manager Sid Grauman was her first cousin; their mothers were sisters. She studied music with Carl Wolfsohn in Chicago, and in Europe with Leopold Godowsky. She also studied composition with Hugo Kaun. Career Elvyn made her debut as a pianist in Berlin in 1904, and played in Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium, and Great Britain from 1905 to 1907. She was described as one of the three great American women pianists in 1908, along with Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler and Julie Rivé-King. “Myrtle Elvyn is wholly unexcelled in power, brilliance and endurance in the playing of strictly ‘show pieces’”, declared one music writer in 1914. Elvyn toured nationally in the United States from 1909 to 1914. She performed Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major with the New York Philharmonic on November 21, 1909. She lived in Chicago and concentrated her performing schedule especially in the A