The American-born violinist and conductor was one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. He was born in New York in 1916. Menuhin commissioned a sonata from Bartok in 1943. Menuhin performed for Allied soldiers during World War II and, with Benjamin Britten on piano, for the surviving inmates of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In 1947 he played concerts with the Berlin Philharmonics under Wilhelm Furtwängler as an act of reconciliation. In 1962, he established the Menuhin School in Surrey. In 1965 he received an honorary knighthood. Menuhin also had a long association with Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar and jazz legend Stéphane Grappelli. Menuhin’s recording contract with EMI lasted some 70 years and is the longest in the history of the music industry. He made his first recording at age 13 in November 1929, and his last in 1999, when he was nearly 83 years old. He recorded over 300 works for EMI.