André Gertler (26 July 1907 – 23 July 1998) was a Hungarian classical violinist and teacher. Professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels (1940–1977), Professor at the Cologne Academy of Music (1954–1957), Professor at the College of Music in Hannover (1964), founder and leader of the Gertler Quartet. Biography Andre Gertler (Hungarian name Gertler Endre) was born in Budapest, Hungary. The talent for arts manifested in his family in several fields: one of his two brothers, Pál Gertler, became a painter while Viktor Gertler was a famous movie director in Hungary. He started his violin studies at the age of six in Budapest, finishing it at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music with a degree recital in 1925, where his teachers were József Bloch, Oszkár Studer, Jenő Hubay, Leo Weiner (chamber music), and Zoltán Kodály (composition). As many other Hubay-students neither did Gertler continue his career in Hungary, He settled in Brussels in 1928, with recommendations of his teachers, where he could improve his technique by Eugène Ysaÿe. After his first concerts in Brussels followed several concert engagements in Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, France and in Italy. He became a teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, in Belgium. He founded the Gertler Quartett with the young violinist Baumann in 1931, leading his quartet he toured the world's stages for two decades (1931-1951). They performed yearly in Budapest between 1932 and 1936, including Bartók's quartets among others in their programs. His reputation in Belgium is shown by the fact, that already in 1937 he was a member of the Jury of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, but he was on the jury of several other international competitions, the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition in 1952. (Poznan), where he made the acquaintance of the first prize winner Igor Oistrakh he tied to him a lifelong friendship. He was married to the Danish pianist Diane Andersen, with whom he regularly concertized and recorded. Commitment to contemporary music Although there were professional tensions between his master, the conservatively inclined Hubay and the progressively minded Bartók, both his master and Bartók's music were destined to play a major role in the activities of Gertler. His real debut at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music had been done some months before his degree recital. The program of this concert anticipated his commitment to the contemporary music: two new Swiss works, Violin Concerto of Hermann Suter and