QUEST FOR THE LOST QUARTET
The Story of the Zoellners, America’s Forgotten Chamber Music Pioneers 1904 - 1954
By Joseph Zoellner’s great-granddaughter, Alexandra Foley, and Liane Schirmer
The Zoellner Quartet….
Performed in Europe prior to World War I and across North America
Acclaimed for democratizing chamber music in North America
Female leader: Antoinette Zoellner was first violin
Established the Zoellner Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles in 1922
Gave over 3000 concerts across North America in over 100 cities
Became the first string quartet to perform Native American music to Native Americans
Entertained audiences from all strata of society, practicing and performing “on the fly”, from the forest floor, the prairie, train carriages and station platforms to South Dakota colleges to Carnegie Hall
Loved by people of influence including the Belgian royal family, the last Tsar of Russia, Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Charles Lummis, Arthur Farwell, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Will Rogers, and Paul Revere Williams
Played a role in the emergence of Los Angeles as a center for the arts in in the 1920s
History
Founded in 1904 by the Brooklyn-born violinist of German descent, Joseph Zoellner, Sr., and his three children, Antoinette, Joseph, Jr. and Amandus, this family ensemble became one of the most acclaimed quartets on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 20th century. With support from San Francisco arts patron Ethel Crocker, the Zoellners moved to Brussels in 1907 so that the children could to study at the Conservatory of Music, where their talent drew the royal attention of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and the Countess of Flanders, mother of the King of the Belgians. A royal performance for the Belgian royal family ensued in 1912.
Returning to the U.S. just before World War I, the Zoellner Quartet embarked on transcontinental tours that would redefine chamber music in North America. Between 1915 and 1929, they played more than 3,000 concerts, performing in a range of venues, from Carnegie Hall and major institutions to churches, frontier schools, railroad stations, and in 1916 in Chilocco, Oklahoma for 600 Native Americans.
They were sought by the deaf and blind activist Helen Keller, spending two consecutive summers with her in her home in Wrentham, Massachusetts. Keller famously wrote after hearing them play: “You are masters of a wondrous art, sight is given, the blind and deaf ears hear sweet, strange sounds.”
Settling in Los Angeles in 1918, the family founded the Zoellner Conservatory of Music at 3839 Wilshire Blvd., now the site of the Wilshire/Western Metro station. The Conservatory became a mecca for American composers such as Charles Skilton and Arthur Farwell, and a magnet for European musicians who had emigrated to the New World. The Zoellners were known for championing foreign and hitherto unknown American composers in the U.S., premiering their works with an energy and passion that was exalted by the American press, by now following their every move. Alfred Hill, Jules Mouquet, Eugene Goossens are examples of foreign composers whose work was premiered by the Zoellners.
The Zoellner Quartet’s weekly KHJ Radio broadcasts and regular performances at venues such as the Biltmore Hotel, Royce Hall, U.S.C.’s Bovard Auditorium, and the Ebell Club helped bring chamber music to a broader public.
Antoinette Zoellner, as first violinist, broke barriers as one of the first women to lead a professional quartet. She was so admired that a suffragette once shouted mid-performance, “A woman leading three men! Votes for Women!”
By the time Joseph Zoellner, Sr. passed away in 1950, the family had performed more than 4,000 concerts and left an enduring legacy. These musical pioneers made chamber music accessible, inclusive, and popular across North America.
Discovery of the Zoellner Archive
Alexandra Foley’s childhood friend, Liane Schirmer - the great granddaughter of Gustav Schirmer, founder of the Schirmer music publishing firm - discovered the existence of a massive Zoellner archive in February 2020. She immediately contacted London-based Alex, who was coincidentally in California at the time. Several days into their research at the Charles E. Young Library at UCLA, the pandemic struck, and Alexandra returned to London. During the lockdown, Alexandra decided to write the book and began to engage with her mother, conducting a series of informal interviews over the next several years.
Unbeknownst to Foley, the archival material collection had been donated to UCLA in 1985 by her mother’s estranged cousin, Ruth Jalof, the granddaughter of Amandus Zoellner. She had rescued the material from an old barn in Northern California, upon the death of Alexandra’s uncle Joe Zoellner. After much agonizing and research, Ruth Jalof finally decided to donate the archive to UCLA, whose Special Collections department had the will and proper resources to professionally preserve it.
Spanning the early 1900s to the 1950’s, the Zoellner Archive includes hundreds of performance programs, press clippings and reviews, correspondence, photographs and diaries. It is a treasure trove that fills a missing chapter in the story of American chamber music. It also offers rare insight into Los Angeles’s early cultural history and the evolution of classical music in post–World War I America.
Together Foley and Schirmer have researched and pieced together the Zoellners remarkable journey, which also speaks to Foley’s heartfelt search for her own American roots.
With a powerful foreword by Professor William Deverell, Dean of Humanities at USC, Quest for the Lost Quartet restores the Zoellners rightful place in the canon of American chamber history.
The authors hope their book is a suitable homage to Joseph Zoellner’s dedication to bring chamber music to a wider audience in the US and in Los Angeles in particular.
As Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, the Zoellners story offers depth and breadth to City of Angels emergence as a center for culture and the arts.
The following academics have passionately supported the project:
Professor William Deverell, Professor of History and Divisional Dean of the Social Sciences, University of Southern California (USC) and Director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West
Andrew Justice, Head of the Music Library at USC
Dr. Christopher Brellochs, Dean of Music, SUNY Schenectady
Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, Head of Violin Department at SUNY Schenectady and founder of the Musicians of Ma’alwyck Quartet
John Koegel, Professor of Musicology at California State University, Fullerton
Professor Joshua Goode, Department of History at Claremont Graduate University
David Bahanovich, Associate Provost, Curtis Institute of Music
Dr. Max Yamane, Ethnomusicologist, Oklahoma University
The authors are engaging with potential publishers having now finished the book after six years of deep dive research and investigation (2020-2026). For further information please contact: Alexandra Foley: alexfoley1066@gmail.com and/or Liane Schirmer: lianeschirmer@gmail.com