Emanuel Borok
Violin
/ (940) 565-3731
Emanuel Borok, who served as Concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 1985 through the 2010 season, has had a distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader. Before coming to Dallas, Mr. 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, 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 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 Emanuel 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 renowned festivals in La Jolla and Montecito California, Summit Music Festival in New York, Settimane Senese and Tuscan Sun Festival in Italy, Gstaad Switzerland and others. His chamber music partners 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. Emanuel Borok was also featured in the Distinguished Artists Recital Series at the 92nd Street Y in New York. In 1999 a recording by the Dallas-based new music ensemble Voices of Change “Voces Americanas” in which he played an important role, was nominated for the Grammy Award. Mr. Borok has recorded the Shostakovich Violin Sonata with Tatiana Yanpolsky (a recording that 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 -a recording honored by “Ovation” magazine as the record of the year.
Mr. Borok’s most recent recordings entitled “A Road Less Traveled” and “Songs for a Lonely Heart” released to critical acclaim on the Eroica label include seldom performed concertos by Joseph Haydn and romantic pieces for violin. Mr. Borok 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 in 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.
In June 2010 Emanuel 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 featuring a violin concerto written by Alexander Raskatov and dedicated to Mr. Borok’s Brothers Amati violin’s 400th birthday (1608).
Emanuel Borok currently serves on the faculty of the University of North Texas where he teaches violin, Orchestral literature, and an advanced course for Concertmaster Studies.
