Polish Television and MAAM TV Producers from Bremen in Germany have begun work on a documentary about the legendary violinist Ida Haendel.

One of the film’s financial sponsors is the local government of the south-eastern province of Lublin as it was in Chełm, not far from Lublin where Haendel was born. Her Polish roots and contacts with Poles will be among the main strands of the film.

Ida Haende was born into a Jewish family. Her date of birth varies in different sources, from 1923 to 1928. She started playing the violin at the age of three and four years later became a student of the Warsaw Conservatory. She subsequently studied abroad with Carl Flesch and George Enescu.

At 14, she appeared as soloist at a Proms concert in London. During World War Two, Ida Haendel gave concerts for Allied troops. In 1940 she became a British subject. Based in Montreal from 1952 to 1989, she made annual tours of Europe and performed regularly in South America and Asia. She now lived in Miami.

Haendel has made several visits to Poland, for concerts (including the one in Chełm) and as a jury member of the Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poznań. In 2006 she performed during the visit to Auschwitz by Pope Benedict XVI.

Haendel’s career was the subject of the CBC-TV documentary Ida Haendel: A Voyage of Music (1988). (mk)

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