Persinger had early lessons in Colorado, appearing in public by the age of 12. His main studies were at the Leipzig Conservatory where he studied violin, piano and conducting before finishing his training in Brussels and France. He was described by one of his teachers as "one of the most talented pupils the Leipzig Conservatory ever had.
He served as leader of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra and the Royal Opera Orchestra in Brussels before being appointed leader and assistant conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1915 and in 1930 he joined the faculty og the Juilliard School in New York. He was best known as the teacher of many great violinists.
Persinger was also a pretty good amateur chessplayer. I was not able to locate a rating for him, but I would guess it was somewhere between 1800-2000.
In 1941, Persinger won the first USCF open correspondence tournament.
In 1944, he played in the US Chess Championship, but only scored a half point out of 17 games and finished in last place. His lone draw was against sixth place finisher George Shainswit. He explained the problem was that the chess boards were out of tune.
There were only 18 players, many of whom were non-masters, who were split into two qualifying two qualifying events and Persinger got into the finals as a result of finishing in the top half of one of the qualifiers.
You can view an old tournament book of the 2nd Hollywood Pan-Am played in Los Angeles in 1954. Persinger finished tied for 57-60 out of 74 players with a score of +4 -7 =3. You can find the original version HERE. Here’s a nice, fairly well played win he scored in that event.
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