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Early Years
Born the youngest of four children into an affluent Birmingham, Alabama, family on January 22, 1908, Alice Chalifoux was the only one of the four who demonstrated a keen interest in music. Fortunately, both parents were trained musicians in their own right. Father Oliver Chalifoux was a Paris Conservatory-trained violinist; mother Alice Hallé Chalifoux played piano, violin, and harp. Both readily supported their youngest child's musical aspirations.
Ms. Chalifoux studied at the Blessed Sacrament Academy and later graduated from the Loulie Compton Seminary. She had her own harp, which was kept at a room in the convent, and on which she would practice "Not very much, but... a little bit." After reading an article in Musical America about the newly formed Curtis Institute, Mrs. Chalifoux wrote to Carlos Salzedo, the harp department's founder and head, to inquire about the possibility of her daughter attending the school.
Though she was initially absolutely "terrified of [Salzedo]," Alice Chalifoux quickly became a star pupil, and, in 1930, her third year at Curtis, began the first of over seventy years of summering at the Salzedo School in Maine. One might expect a worldrenowned harpist to recall countless hours of summer practicing; instead, some of her fondest memories are about food: "And the thing I remember about the boarding house [in Maine] was the cream. You'd have to lift it out of the jar with the spoon, which I love. I love cream. That's my only recollection... the important things, right [laughs]." Upon his death in 1961, Salzedo bequeathed his school to his protégée, and for the next forty-one years, Ms. Chalifoux, assisted by her niece, Peabody Conservatory professor Jeanne Chalifoux, continued teaching the Salzedo tradition to the world from the foot of Penobscot Bay.
Cleveland Orchestra
During her senior year at Curtis, Ms. Chalifoux auditioned for and won the principal harp position with the Cleveland Orchestra-a position she held from 1931-1974 under the batons of Artur Rodzinski, Eric Leinsdorf, George Szell, Pierre Boulez, and Lorin...