Lili Kraus (Hungarian: Kraus Lili, April 3, 1903 – November 6, 1986)
was a Hungarian-born British pianist.

Lili Kraus was born in Budapest in 1903. Her father was from Czech Lands, and her mother from an assimilated Jewish Hungarian family.

She enrolled at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, and at the age of 17 entered the Budapest Conservatory where she studied with Artur Schnabel, Zoltán Kodály, and Béla Bartók. In the 1930s, she continued her studies with Severin Eisenberger, Eduard Steuermann and Schnabel, who focused her interest in the classical tradition.

Lili Kraus soon became known as a specialist in Mozart and Beethoven. Her early chamber music performances and recording with violinist Szymon Goldberg helped gain the critical acclaim that launched her international career. In the 1930s, she toured Europe, Japan, Australia and South Africa. In 1942, Kraus embarked on a tour of Asia where, while in Java, she and her family were captured and interned by the Japanese until the end of World War II.

After the war, she became a New Zealander (formally a British subject) and resumed her career, touring extensively and eventually settling in the United States. In the early 1950s she performed the entire Beethoven sonata cycle with violinist Henri Temianka. From 1967 to 1983, she was artist-in-residence at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. She made her home in Asheville, North Carolina, where she died in 1986.

Her husband was Jewish (later converted to Catholicism) Austrian philosopher and patron Otto Mandl (b. 1889)...

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The Estonia Piano Factory was founded in 1950 by Ernst Hiis in Tallinn, Estonia.
The majority of Estonia pianos are now sold in the United States.
The Estonia piano is one of the world’s most limited production instruments, with only a little over 400 Estonia pianos hand-crafted each year. Estonia pianos are crafted in Tallinn, the capital city of the country of Estonia, just across the Baltic Sea from Finland.

Estonia pianos have a history dating back to 1893, yet the Estonia piano had been on of the best-kept secrets in the piano industry. Now the word is out with more than 200 newspapers nation wide reporting on the Estonia, with an article in Forbes magazine and with recommendations from countless teachers and technicians who have fallen in love with its rich warm romantic tone.

Immaculate workmanship and gorgeous casework are hallmarks of the Estonia piano.
Luminaries from Van Cliburn to Ray Charles have waxed poetic about the Estonia pianos. Estonia focuses all of its energies on making only grand pianos. Long the secret of Eastern Europe’s world-class concert artists, Estonia is now a favorite around the world.

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