Gregor Benko

Gregor Benko left after his freshman year at Kalamazoo College in 1963 and worked as a clerk in a record store. A year later in Cleveland he and Albert Petrak founded the International Piano Library, a non-profit group designed to collect and disseminate materials relating to the art of the performing classical pianist. In 1965 Benko took the fledgling institution to New York City, and worked as its managing director for twenty years.

After the move, I.P.L. was forced by state law to change its name to International Piano Archives. From an artistic standpoint, I.P.L./I.P.A. was a great success under Benko’s management. Within a few years a world class collection of materials had been assembled and I.P.L./I.P.A had gained a stellar reputation for sharing materials through its publication policies. Benko served as collector, concert presenter, author, record producer, reviewer and musicologist. However, costs of maintaining the collections always outstripped income. After discussions with several libraries, Benko chose the library at the University of Maryland, to which he donated the I.P.A. collections in 1978, where they are now housed and staffed in their own quarters and are one of the crown jewels of the University library special collections.

Benko taught a course to graduate piano students at Maryland utilizing materials from the collections the first year after donating the collections, and afterward contributed as a consultant in development for I.P.A.M. He has written articles, discographies and reviews for most record journals (American Record Guide, High Fidelity, Stereo Review, Fanfare, International Piano Quarterly etc.), and liner notes for recordings by Rachmaninoff, Hofmann, Godowsky etc. for RCA, Columbia, Decca-London and most other record labels, always on the subject of historic recordings and performers. He has lectured at music festivals, convocations and universities in Newport, Florida University in Miami, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the University of Maryland, the University of Georgia, Howard University in Washington, and at City University and Hunter College in New York. He frequently works as a consultant on historic musical material for libraries, law firms and dealers, and is still an avid collector of musical memorabilia.

Twice Benko interrupted his “regular” work and “did time” with corporations for two year stints each: first as Director of Artists and Repertoire for the Special Projects division of Polygram Records, then later as an associate to the owner of Lion Heart Autographs, a firm that bought and sold historic documents. Recently he has been working on a television documentary and a biography of the pianist Josef Hofmann.

Benko gave several joint lectures with Harold Schonberg, longtime music critic of the New York Times and author of The Great Pianists. In New York recently he was master of ceremonies at Carnegie Recital Hall for the Harold Schonberg Memorial.