Eugene Nicholas Fodor Jr. was an American classical violinist. Fodor was born in Denver, Colorado. His first 10 years of study were with Harold Wippler, who taught him from 1958 until 1968. Wippler observed that "It was very apparent that he had exceptional talent. Not just technical talent but a great, unusual understanding of music." He then studied at the Juilliard School in New York City, Indiana University Bloomington and the University of Southern California, where his teachers included Ivan Galamian, Josef Gingold and Jascha Heifetz, respectively. Fodor made his solo debut with the Denver Symphony Orchestra at the age of 10, playing Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1, and began touring as a soloist while still a young teenager. Fodor won numerous national contests before the age of 17, including First Prize in both the Merriweather Post Competition in Columbia, Maryland and the Young Musicians Foundation Competition in Los Angeles. Fodor went on to win first prize in the Paganini Competition in Italy in 1972, at the age of 22. It was this win that gained him widespread public attention. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)