Jakob Gimpel was a Polish-American classical pianist and educator who was born in Lwów, Austria-Hungary, in 1906. He achieved professional recognition in 1923 with a debut performance in Vienna, performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Gimpel is famous for a career as a concert pianist and for his recorded performances in films including Gaslight (1944) and The Mephisto Waltz (1971). After studying under Cornelia Tarnowska and Eduard Steuermann, he emigrated to the United States in 1938 and later settled in Los Angeles. From 1971 to 1986, he served as a professor in residence at California State University, Northridge. Gimpel was awarded the West German Order of Merit, First Class, and the Ben-Gurion Award from the State of Israel (1975). He died in 1989.
