Born in
Munich, Michael Mann was the youngest and sixth child of writer
Thomas Mann and
Katia Mann. His older siblings were
Erika,
Klaus,
Golo,
Monika and
Elisabeth. He was of
Jewish descent from his mother's side. Due to his being the grandson of
Júlia da Silva Bruhns, he was also of Portuguese-
Indigenous Brazilian partial descent. He studied
viola and
violin in
Zürich,
Paris and
New York City. in the canton of Zurich, where he is buried in the family grave with his parents and his sisters. He was a viola player in the
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from 1942 to 1947 as well as being a solo viola player. Accompanied by pianist
Yaltah Menuhin, he made a concert tour in 1951 and recorded the 1948
Viola Sonata by
Ernst Krenek. He was forced to give up professional music due to a
neuropathy. Mann's tour with Menuhin came to an end when he struck her in a fit of rage. He also was physically abusive to his wife Gret. Mann gained a master's degree in musicology from
Duquesne University and a PhD in German literature from
Harvard before joining the German faculty at the
University of California, Berkeley in 1961. He died at age 57 in
Orinda, California on 1 January 1977. Reported at the time as a heart attack, his death has also been stated to be the result of an "overdose of alcohol and
barbiturates" that was either suicidal or accidental. There is a stone with his name on it on his parents' grave in
Kilchberg, Switzerland. ==Discography==