Robert Scholz (pianist)  Robert Scholz (; 16 October 1902 – 11 October 1986) was an Austrian-born American pianist, conductor, composer and teacher. He achieved fame as a pianist, especially in Austria during the Twenties and Thirties in a piano duo with his brother Heinz Scholz with whom he also published the first authoritative collection of Mozart’s works for piano. After emigrating to the United States in 1938 he became a well-known conductor and founder of the American Chamber Orchestra in New York. In 1963 the US State Department invited him to teach in Taiwan as part of a scholarly exchange program. Here he achieved lasting fame as a conductor and especially as the founding father of Taiwan's piano tradition. Most influential piano professors in Taiwan today can trace their roots back to his teachings. He died in Taipei in 1986. Robert Scholz was born in Steyr, Austria, on 16 October 1902. His father, Karl Scholz, was a store manager, his mother, Johanna Mayr, a soprano who met and corresponded with Anton Bruckner. His elder brother, the pianist Heinz Scholz (1897-1988), was president of the Mozarteum Salzburg in 1964. Some genealogical research of the Scholz family from 1750 until the present time has been undertaken by the composer Martin Fiala in Steyr. Scholz received his first piano lessons from his mother in 1906 but failed to find a more professional piano teacher in Steyr during the war years. Together with his brother Heinz he participated in charity concerts to raise funds for the Red Cross and to help the wounded. He graduated from highschool ("Realschule") in 1920. In 1921 he took about ten piano lessons with Austrian pianist Friedrich Wührer in Vienna, each time traveling 16 hours from Steyr, and was later admitted to the Mozarteum in Salzburg where he studied with Felix Petyrek. After only ten lessons Scholz returned to Steyr studying without a teacher. Just nine months after he entered it, Scholz passed the Mozarteum's final exams in piano and composition with distinction ("mit Auszeichnung") and also received a teaching certificate. Subsequently he taught piano and composition at the Mozarteum from 1924-1937. In 1935 he even became the first teacher for harpsichord at an Austrian music college. Robert and Heinz Scholz had a distinguished career as a piano duo which began with a European tour in 1923.