Brusilow, Anshel, 1928-2018

Name: Albert Brusilow
Age: 18
Relationship to Draftee: Self (Head)
Birth Date: 14 Aug 1928
Birth Place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Residence Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Registration Date: 1946
Registration Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Employer: Student - Philadelphia Musical Academy
Weight: 174
Complexion: Ruddy
Eye Color: Gray
Hair Color: Brown
Height: 5 9
Next of Kin: Dora Brusilow

Anshel Brusilow (August 14, 1928 – January 15, 2018) was an American violinist, conductor, and music educator at the collegiate level.

Growing up and education
Brusilow was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1928, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants Leon and Dora Brusilow (see § Family). He began his violin study at the age of five with William Frederick Happich (1884–1959) and subsequently studied with Jani Szanto (1887–1977). Brusilow entered the Curtis Institute of Music when he was eleven and studied there with Efrem Zimbalist. Throughout most of his childhood and adolescence, he was known as "Albert Brusilow". Later, at the urging of his girlfriend (who would later become his wife), he returned to using his birth name, Anshel.[13]

Brusilow attended the Philadelphia Musical Academy and at sixteen was the youngest conducting student ever accepted by Pierre Monteux. A 4th prize winner of the Jacques Thibaud-Marguerite Long Violin Competition in 1949,[14] he performed as a soloist with numerous major orchestras in the United States.

Career
Violinist
From 1954–55, Brusilow was concertmaster and assistant conductor of the New Orleans Symphony under Alexander Hilsberg (1897–1961).[i] From 1955–59, he was associate concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell. And from 1959 to 1966, he was concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.

Acclaimed recordings featuring Brusilow with the Philadelphia Orchestra include Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, and Strauss's Ein Heldenleben.[15]

While serving as concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Brusilow founded in 1961, and from 1961–65, conducted the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, an organization composed of musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra. But December 1964, Brusilow announced his resignation as concertmaster, effective June 1966, over a dispute with the Orchestra Association forbidding players from forming independent musical groups.[ii]

Conductor
Brusilow, in 1965, founded, and from 1965–68, directed and conducted the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia,[16] which performed two and one-half 34-week seasons and recorded six records on RCA Victor. In 1968, the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia folded under financial duress, attributed mostly to a lack of philanthropic support for a second orchestra in Philadelphia.

In 1970, Brusilow was appointed executive director and conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He led the orchestra's first tours of Central and South America and started the pops series that the orchestra still performs to this day. The most notable recording from this period was Dallasound, a pops music album featuring several arrangements by Bill Holcombe [de].[17][18] In 1973, after a successful tour of Central and South America, Brusolow was summarily fired[19] after the Symphony's board of directors came under censure when it became public that composers were paying for having their works performed.[20]

He was the music director of the Richardson Symphony Orchestra in Richardson, Texas, from 1992 until his retirement from that position in 2012.[21]

Music educator in higher education
Brusilow was Director of Orchestral Studies at North Texas State University (later known as the University of North Texas) from 1973 to 1982, and again at North Texas from 1989 to 2008. Between 1982 and 1989 he held a similar post at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Brusilow retired from his professorship at North Texas in 2008. Shortly before his retirement he conducted his final concert with the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra on Wednesday, April 23, 2008, in the Winspear Performance Hall of the Murchison Performing Arts Center in Denton. A $1,000,000 endowment, which includes the creation of a faculty position, the Anshel Brusilow Chair in Orchestral Studies, was established in his honor.[22]

Diplomas, awards, and professional affiliations
1947: Artist's diploma, Philadelphia Musical Academy
1968: MusD, Capitol University
(n.d.) National Patron, Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity[23]
2015: Forward Indies (IndieFab Book of Year), Gold Winner for Performing Arts & Music, sponsored by Foreword Reviews, Inc., for Brusilow's memoir, Shoot the Conductor: Too Close to Monteux, Szell, and Ormandy, co-written with Robin Underdahl, published July 15, 2015 (hardcover) and August 15, 2016 (paperback)[13][24]
Brusilow's violin and bows
Soon after becoming concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Brusilow purchased a 1743 Guarneri del Gesu violin[25] (Cozio 49626), which today is known as "The Brusilow." The violin, reportedly, was once owned by the French violinist, Jacques Pierre Rode (1774–1830), who had been a court violinist to Napoleon. The provenance also includes W.E. Hill & Sons; Arthur Beare (until 1929); Alfred Oppenheim Corbin (1874–1941), a Dutch-born London-then-New-York-investment-banker, amateur violinist, and serious collector of violins (1929 to 1931); Leo Reisman, who purchased it through Emil Herrmann (from 1931); Theodore Pitcairn, a philanthropist who purchased it through Rembert Wurlitzer (around 1953); Brusilow (1959 to 1966), then to its previous owner (name unknown).[26][27] Brusilow acquired the violin, through an arrangement, from Pitcairn, who, with Brusilow standing at his side at William Moennig & Son in Philadelphia, wrote a check for $28,000. Moennig, according to Brusilow, "threw in a Tourte bow for free," which Brusilow still owned in the late 1980s.[25] Brusilow wrote in his 2015 book, Shoot The Conductor: Too Close to Monteux, Szell, and Ormandy, that he also owned a John Dodd bow, and preferred it over the Tourte.[13]

Name: Albert Brusilown
[Albert Brusilow]
Age: 11
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1929
Gender: Male
Race: White
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Marital Status: Single
Relation to Head of House: Son
Home in 1940: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Map of Home in 1940: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Street: South 60 Street
House Number: 141
Inferred Residence in 1935: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Residence in 1935: Philadelphia
Sheet Number: 13B
Attended School or College: Yes
Highest Grade Completed: Elementary school, 7th grade

Name: Albert Brusiow
[Albert Brusion]
Birth Year: abt 1928
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age in 1930: 2
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Marital Status: Single
Relation to Head of House: Son
Home in 1930: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Map of Home: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Street Address: Franklin St
Ward of City: 20 pt
Block: 179
House Number: 941
Dwelling Number: 84
Family Number: 131
Attended School: No
Able to Read and Write: No
Father's Birthplace: Russia
Mother's Birthplace: Russia
Able to Speak English: No

For three decades, Anshel Brusilow has challenged his UNT music students to "play above their heads."

As director of the orchestral studies program at UNT, Brusilow treated his students as professionals, preparing them for the competitive field of music and arming them with the experience and knowledge they needed to succeed.

"He treated us as if we were the Philadelphia Orchestra," says former UNT Symphony Orchestra member Chris Farrell ('94), now a violist in the Nashville Symphony. "He expected the same kind of conduct and playing. Brusilow is by far the best."

On April 23, the retiring conductor directed his farewell concert at UNT, leading the Symphony Orchestra in Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky with the UNT Grand Chorus and ending with Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony. When Brusilow stepped away from the podium that night to a standing ovation, he left behind a legacy of musical greatness. That legacy is carried on today by his former students across the world and will be reflected in the Anshel Brusilow Chair in Orchestral Studies, created primarily to raise scholarship money for orchestral students.

"It's been wonderful, and I've loved every minute of it," Brusilow told the concert crowd.

He has been lauded as one of the nation's best, drawing in students who wished to play in his orchestra.

"One would be very hard pressed to cite another university that has had for more than three decades someone as head of orchestral studies with the combination of the richness of professional experience and the depth of musicality of Anshel Brusilow," College of Music Dean James Scott says. "Without any pretense, he has not only communicated his own musical visions, but has passed on the legendary traditions of such venerable orchestras as the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy."

Great expectations

Brusilow's musical journey began as a young child. He entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age 11 as a student of the world-famous violinist Efrem Zimbalist.

At 16, he was accepted as a conducting student by renowned conductor Pierre Monteux. He performed as a soloist with major U.S. orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and Boston Symphony. He served as associate concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra under Szell and concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy. In 1970, he began conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Then, in 1973, he joined UNT for one year as a visiting professor. Ultimately, he decided to stay.

"I had fallen in love with the school," he says. "When I think about it, it was a very important turning point in my life because I went from performance to teaching, and those are two different worlds. Young students may be performing a work they may have never heard before. That's the difference; that's really teaching."

In his first tenure at UNT from 1973 to 1981, Brusilow established the UNT Chamber Orchestra to perform works for smaller ensembles. He left to teach for a few years at Southern Methodist University and returned to UNT in 1989. Under his leadership, the UNT orchestra performed at the Mozart Bicentennial at Lincoln Center, toured Spain and other Mediterranean countries and performed Verdi's Requiem in Monterrey, Mexico.

Former students say Brusilow's great expectations — though overwhelming at first — helped propel them beyond the level of university students.

When Madeline Adkins ('98), daughter of Professor Emeritus Cecil Adkins, entered her last year of college, Brusilow told the UNT Symphony Orchestra concertmaster she would be performing Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade and Strauss's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme — both demanding pieces.

"To this day, a lot of professionals haven't gotten the opportunity to play some of those solos," says Adkins, now associate concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. "It was really amazing to accomplish so much."

In addition to teaching young concertmasters such as Adkins, Brusilow mentored conducting students who have gone on to successful careers. Hector Guzman ('81) — now the music director of the Plano Symphony Orchestra, Irving Symphony and San Angelo Symphony — studied with Brusilow at UNT for his bachelor's degree, followed him to SMU for his master's degree and returned to UNT for doctoral studies with Brusilow.

"I lost my father in 1981, and he became like a father to me," says Guzman, who conducts internationally and says he still keeps Brusilow's teachings in mind today. "He carried the weight and name of Anshel Brusilow with his history with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and he put the UNT orchestra, as far as the conducting world, on the map."

Encouraging success

His assignments were tough but taught lifelong lessons, remembers Matthew Mailman ('95 D.M.A.), son of former UNT music professor Martin Mailman, who died in 2000. Matthew recalls studying Sibelius' 2nd Symphony in Brusilow's doctoral conducting class. The assignment was to memorize the piece and conduct it — all 40 minutes of it. It was a hard assignment, a student pointed out. But Brusilow told them, never mind that. Just do it.

"I got many layers of inspiration from that, and that is what I tell my students," says Mailman, now a professor of conducting at Oklahoma City University and artist conductor in residence at Opera in the Ozarks. "This may be difficult, but just do it."

Brusilow's impact had far-reaching effects beyond the orchestra and the conducting program, says Rob Frank ('88 M.M., '95 D.M.A.), chair of the theory and composition department at Southern Methodist University. Brusilow helped him and other composition students launch their careers when he performed their pieces with the UNT Symphony Orchestra and the Richardson Symphony. And his support didn't end with graduation.

"I would send him orchestral works that I had written every couple of years," Frank says. "He always wrote back and had wonderful comments and suggestions."

Kristopher Carter ('93) studied composition at UNT and played double bass in the UNT Symphony Orchestra.

"Music is an incredibly competitive profession, and I do think the attitudes and expectations that he trained us to have are essential to be able to stand out in this career," Carter says.

Now in Los Angeles, Carter is one of the youngest composers to work for Warner Bros. He has received one Emmy Award and five other nominations for his TV compositions and has just finished his 15th independent feature film score.

"Even though I've graduated, he is always so welcoming, encouraging and ready to hear your stories," Carter says. "That has been really special to me."

In his retirement, Brusilow plans to continue conducting the Richardson Symphony, which he has been leading since 1992, and work on a book about his experiences as a concertmaster and conductor. And after three decades at UNT, he still plans to attend concerts, watching, critiquing and supporting.

"I will be there at UNT," he says. "I feel it's my school."