AUDAX
IN HIS ENGAGING new memoir, Face the Music (written with Virginia Beard), society bandleader and man-about-town Peter Duchin reflects on family, illness, and a bygone era of glamour. An internationally famous bandleader, Peter Duchin’s six decades of performing have taken him to the most exclusive dance floors and concert halls in the world. He has played for presidents, kings, and queens, as well as for Civil Rights and cultural organizations. But in 2013, Duchin suffered a stroke that left him with limited use of his left hand, severely impacting his 68 QUEST
career. Days of recuperating from his stroke—and later from a critical case of COVID-19—inspired Duchin to reconsider his complicated past. His father, the legendary bandleader Eddy Duchin, a headliner at the fabled Central Park Casino where Mayor Jimmy Walker and other Roaring Twenties swells partied nightly, died when Peter was 12; his mother, Marjorie (called “Bubbles” by her Farmington schoolmates) Oelrichs Duchin, died when Peter was just six days old. In the succeeding decades, after being raised by Averell and Marie Harriman, Duchin would
CO U RTE S Y O F P E TE R D U C H I N ; J O N AT H A N M O R S E
PETER DUCHIN FACES THE MUSIC
