Lucien Kirsch Laporte; Cellist for More Than 50 Years

Lucien Kirsch Laporte, 91, cellist for more than 50 years and organizer of chamber music groups. Educated in Paris, he came to the United States in 1923 as first cellist of the New York Symphony. He later held the same position with the NBC Orchestra and then the CBS Orchestra. He switched to chamber music in 1938, and was co-founding cellist of the New World String Quartet and the Chamber Music Guild of New York, and also performed with the Guilet String Quartet and the internationally known Paganini Quartet. On Thursday on Lopez Island, Wash., of cancer.