Alice Frisca

Alice Frisca (March 7, 1900 — January 24, 1960) was the professional name of Alice Mayer, an American pianist.

Alice Mayer was from San Francisco, California,^[1] the daughter of Benjamin Mayer and Eva Mayer. Her stage name was a reference to that city. As a young woman, she won the MacDowell Prize from the California Federation of Music Clubs.^[2] She was a student of Pierre Douillet,^[3] Clarence Eddy, and Leopold Godowsky.^[4]

She made her Paris debut in 1920,^[5] and was honored with a medal for a concert she gave in 1921 in Paris, a benefit for French and Belgian artists in need after World War I.^[6] "She has a conspicuously neat and fluent technique," noted critic Alfred Kalisch, writing in The Musical Times of her London debut in 1921, "and a touch of no little charm."^[7] Her New York debut a few months later drew similar critical appreciation,^[8] though the New-York Tribune scoffed that "Miss Frisca evidently mistakes force for brilliance," and said that she "more nearly resembled a noisy amateur than a professional pianist."^[9]

Alice Frisca married businessman Ralph Kirsch in New York, and left behind her performing career.^[10] Her husband's nephew, Harold C. Schonberg, was the Pulitzer Prize-winning chief music critic at The New York Times from 1960 to 1980; he cited her as his first piano teacher and an important early influence on his understanding of music.^[11] Alice Mayer Kirsch died in 1960, aged 59 years, while in Puerto Rico with her husband.^[12]