Borok, Emanuel, 1944-2020

Violin virtuoso Emanuel Borok, former concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, has distinguished himself as a soloist, orchestral leader and chamber musician.

Prior to his 25-year tenure as the Dallas Symphony’s concertmaster Emanuel Borok served as Associate Concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and as Concertmaster of the Boston Pops Orchestra for eleven seasons.
Mr. Borok received his early musical instruction at the renowned Darzinya Music School in Riga, Latvia, and the Gnessin School of Music in Moscow. In 1964, he won the foremost National Violin Competition in the former Soviet Union and was selected for the position of Co-Concertmaster in the Moscow Philharmonic in 1971.

Emanuel Borok has made solo appearances in Canada, France, Holland, Italy, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland, Venezuela, and throughout the United States, including Carnegie Hall. His guest artist appearances have included the Bach Double Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin, Brahms’s Double Concerto with Janos Starker, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Pinchas Zukerman and a concerto appearance in Cortona, Italy at the famed Tuscan Sun Festival.

His chamber music partners include Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Christopher Hogwood, Ralph Kirshbaum, Cho-Liang Lin, Paul Neubauer and Itzhak Perlman, among others.

Emanuel Borok was featured in the Distinguished Artists Recital Series at the 92nd Street Y in New York.

In 1999, he was featured in a recording by Voices of Change, Dallas’ new music chamber ensemble, called “Voces Americanas.” The album was nominated for the Grammy Award.

Mr. Borok’s recordings include the violin solo of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with musicians from the Boston Symphony (Stereo Review Magazine named it “Best of the Month”), the Shostakovich Violin Sonata with Tatiana Yanpolsky (earned a four-star rating from the Penguin Cassette Guide), and Beethoven’s Archduke Trio with Claude Frank, piano, and Leslie Parnas, cello, (honored by “Ovation” magazine).

“A Road Less Traveled,” Mr. Borok’s most recent recording, was released to critical acclaim on the Eroica label; this performance includes seldom-performed concertos by Joseph Haydn.

Mr. Borok’s original cadenzas for all five Mozart Violin Concertos are available through the publisher, Theodore Presser Co.

Emanuel Borok has also established himself as an internationally- recognized teacher having taught at the Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy; the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Switzerland; the Royal Conservatory and Academy of Music in London, the Conservatoire de Paris, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Moscow, the Academy of Music in Prague and the Tanglewood Music Center in Massacheusetts. He was invited to teach at the famous Verbier Festival in Switzerland the summer of 2005.

In addition to his duties with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Emanuel Borok currently serves on the prestigious music faculty of the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU.

...Borok was credited with cultivating the sound and discipline of the orchestra’s violin sections. He helped prepare the orchestra for its 1989 move from Fair Park Music Hall to the Meyerson Symphony Center.

“It was an important time in the development of the orchestra,” said longtime DSO artistic administrator Victor Marshall, now retired. “His violin sound was distinctive and added strong musical presence and personality to the orchestra. In addition to his duties as concertmaster, he quickly established himself as a leading violin teacher and frequent chamber musician in the area. He is well remembered for his annual appearances with the orchestra as soloist in many of the leading violin concertos.”

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With his trim beard and the accent he never entirely lost from early years in the Soviet Union, Borok had the aura of an Eastern European aristocrat, but also an eagerness to engage with fellow musicians and music lovers. “Manny” to his many friends and colleagues, he was quietly passionate about life as well as art.

Morton Meyerson, who got to know Borok when they served together on a DSO music director search, said: “He had strong professional opinions, yet he was gentle enough to not use the prestige and power of his DSO chair in meetings. His musical skills were obvious and his nature as sweet as his violin’s tone.”

...Borok was trained at the Darzinya Music School in Riga, Latvia, and the Gnessin School of Music in Moscow. In 1971, he won the position of co-concertmaster in the Moscow Philharmonic. He joined the Boston Symphony in 1974....

Emanuel Borok, Concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 2010, has had a distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. Before coming to Dallas, Borok served for 11 seasons as Associate Concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Concertmaster of the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Born and trained in the Soviet Union, Borok received his early musical instruction at the renowned Darzinya Music School in Riga, Latvia, and the Gnessin School of Music in Moscow. In 1964 he became prizewinner of the most important national violin competition in the former Soviet Union. In 1971, he won the position of Co-Concertmaster in the Moscow Philharmonic.

Since emigrating to the West in 1973, Borok has made many solo appearances in Israel, Canada, France, Italy, Norway, Germany, Venezuela, Mexico, Switzerland, Holland and throughout the United States (including Carnegie Hall). His solo appearances have included the Bach Double Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin, Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante with Pinchas Zukerman and Brahms’s Double Concerto with Janos Starker; concerto and chamber music appearances at notable festivals such as the La Jolla Festival of the Arts in La Jolla, Calif.; Montecito International Music Festival, Mentecito, Calif.; Summit Music Festival in Purchase, N.Y.; Settimane Musicale Senese in Siena, Italy; Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona, Italy; Gstaad Switzerland and others. His chamber music partners have included such distinguished artists as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz, Lynn Harrell, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Christopher Hogwood, Joshua Bell, Ralph Kirshbaum, Cho-Liang Lin, Sarah Chang and Paul Neubauer as well as Principals of Berlin Philharmonic Hansjorg Schellenberger and Daniel Damiano. Borok was also featured in the Distinguished Artists Recital Series at the 92nd Street Y in New York.

In 1999, Borok was part of the Grammy-nominated CD Voces Americanas with Dallas-based new music ensemble Voices of Change. He also recorded the Shostakovich Violin Sonata with Tatiana Yampolsky (which received a four-star rating from the Penguin Cassette Guide), the solo part of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with musicians from the Boston Symphony (named “Best of the Month” by Stereo Review magazine), and Beethoven’s Archduke Trio with pianist Claude Frank and cellist Leslie Parnas (honored by Ovation magazine as the record of the year).

Borok’s most recent recordings include A Road Less Traveled and Songs for a Lonely Heart, with seldom-performed concertos by Joseph Haydn and romantic pieces for violin, released to critical acclaim on the Eroica label. He has published a book of original cadenzas for all five Mozart Violin Concertos with Theodore Presser Co.

In addition to his highly active performing life, Borok has established himself as an internationally recognized teacher having taught at the Tanglewood Music Center; the Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy; the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Switzerland; Royal Conservatory and Academy of Music in London; Conservatoire de Paris; Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Moscow; and the Academy of Music in Prague. In the summer of 2005 he was invited to teach at the famous Verbier Festival in Switzerland.

Borok’s violin is a 400-year-old Brothers Amati violin, made in 1608 in Cremona, Italy, home to such famous violin makers as Amati, Guarneri and Stradivarius. In 2009, on the occasion of the violin’s 400th “birthday,” Borok traveled with his violin to Cremona and presented a concert for the people of the city, all of which was captured in the documentary A Cremona con Amore, available on Amazon.com.

In June 2010 Borok was invited to perform at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with the Radio Philharmonic orchestra during the Holland Festival under the direction of Jaap van Zweden. The occasion featured a violin concerto written by Alexander Raskatov and dedicated to Mr. Borok’s 1608 Brothers Amati violin.

Borok retired from the orchestra life in 2010 and is currently Distinguished Artist-In-Residence, Violin at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, where he combines his teaching with performing, conducting master classes and adjudicating competitions.

Emanuel Borok (15 July 1944 – 4 January 2020) was an American violinist of Russian descent.

Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Borok studied violin in Riga, Latvia, with Voldemar Sturestep. In 1959, he joined the Gnessin Music School in Moscow, where he continued his studies with Michael Garlitsky. He won top prizes in the All-Russian Republic and All-Soviet Union violin competitions. He became second concertmaster of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in 1971. In 1973, he emigrated to Israel, where he became concertmaster of the Israel Chamber Orchestra.

In 1974, Borok emigrated to the United States, to take the post of associate concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In parallel, he was concertmaster of the Boston Pops. Borok spent 11 years in his Boston posts.[1] In 1985, he won the position of concertmaster in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and joined the Dallas Symphony that year. He initially performed on a Stradivarius violin dating from ca. 1727, owned by the Dallas Symphony, until its theft that year whilst he and the orchestra were on tour. The violin was not recovered until 2005. Subsequently, Borok performed on a 1608 Brothers Amati violin that he owned.[1] On the occasion of the violin's 500th "birthday", Borok returned in 2009 to the town of its creation, Cremona, Italy, and presented it in concert for the people of the city, recorded in the documentary A Cremona con Amore.[2][3] Borok served as Dallas Symphony concertmaster until his retirement in 2010.[1]

In 2011, Borok was the principal violinist for the Maui Classical Music Festival on Maui, Hawai`i for its 30th season.[4]

Borok taught at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston. In 2013, he joined the violin faculty at the Meadows School of the Arts of Southern Methodist University as an artist-in-residence.

Borok died in Dallas on January 4, 2020, at age 75, from lung cancer. His survivors include his wife Marilyn, his ex-wife Zinaida, and their two children, Mark and Sarah.[1]

Name: Emanuel Borok
Birth Date: 15 Jul 1944
Residence Date: 1993
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Residence: Newton Center, MA
Postal Code: 02459-2608
Second Residence Date: 1993
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Second Residence: Newton, MA
Second Postal Code: 02159