Clara Gershkow

Clara Gershkow Hofberg was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 22, 1918. Gershkow attended North High School in Minnesota from 1933 to 1935 and the University of Minnesota from 1938 to 1943. She also practiced music at MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota and taught piano.

Before attending the Summer Music Institute at Black Mountain College in 1944, Gershkow was a piano student of Joanna Grauden who was teaching that summer. When she left Black Mountain at the end of the summer, she followed the Graudans to New York to continue her studies. Eventually, she despaired of trying to pursue a career as a concert pianist.

After her marriage to Leo Hofberg, she lived in New York and Lugano, Switzerland where her husband worked for British Decca. Later she and her husband moved to Arizona because of his health. There she was active in chamber music.

Biography written by Mary Emma Harris for the Black Mountain College Project.

Black Mountain College Project

Mary Emma Harris interviewed Clara in 1998 and the transcript is available from Appalachian State University under The Mary Emma Harris and Black Mountain College Project, Inc. Oral History collection.

Topics: 1944 Summer Music Institute – study with Joanna Graudan – family background – BMC students – Monika Mann – summer piano studies – reading from summer journals: concerts, arrival at BMC, swimming hole, Jean Charlot lectureon El Greco, walks in mountains, college dance, group of friends, Walter Gropius lecture, mealtimes, summer conflict, picnic – discussion of photographs - post-BMC move to New York