Ilona Feher or Ilona Fehér (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈfɛheːr ˈilonɒ]; 1 December 1901, Budapest, Hungary – January, 1988, Holon, Israel), was one of the last representatives of the Central European Violin School whose greats included Joseph Joachim, Otakar Ševčík and Jenő Hubay. She was also a noted violin teacher.

Biography

Early years

Feher studied with Jenő Hubay for six years at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Other violin teachers of her early years were Joseph Bloch, Josef Smvilovitch (also a pupil of Jenő Hubay) and Imre Pogany.

Europe

Between the two world wars she performed all over Europe, in particular with Willem Mengelberg and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Feher lived in Budapest until 1942 when she was interned with her daughter in a concentration camp. They managed to escape in 1944, and joined Hungarian and Czechoslovak partisans until the liberation by the Soviet Red Army. She later returned to the concert stage to perform only in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe.