Oliver Chalifoux
Oliver Chalifoux (died 1938 in Birmingham) was a violinist and department store manager.
Chailifoux studied at the Paris Conservetoire, but his career as a violinist was ended by a bicycle accident that broke his wrist. He worked at a bank in Paris for several years before coming to the United States in 1890 to operate a Birmingham branch of his brother Joseph's Chalifoux Department Store, headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Chalifoux married the former Alice Hallé, an accomplished musician herself, in Chicago, and then oversaw construction of the Chalifoux Building at 1st Avenue North and 19th Street in 1893. The department store was forced to close during the financial panic of 1907. Later Chalifoux opened a music store under his name at 1917 4th Avenue North, and operated it until his death.
The Chalifoux home hosted the organizational meetings of the Birmingham Music Study Club in 1905.
The Chalifouxs had four children, Oliver Jr, Camille, Ralph, and Alice, who followed in her mother's footsteps and became a world-renowned harpist with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.
References
- Musical Alabama (1925) Montgomery: Alabama Federation of Music Clubs/Paragon Press
- Govea, Wenonah Milton (1995) Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Harpists: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN 0313278660