Jacques Israelievitch

Jacques Israelievitch has been concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since 1988, and has appeared regularly with the orchestra as soloist and conductor. He has performed throughout Canada and has been featured often on the CBC. Mr. Israelievitch also plays, teaches and conducts regularly in the U.S.A., Europe and the Far East. Over the past ten years, Mr. Israelievitch has made numerous visits to Japan to play, teach and conduct.

Born in Cannes, Israelievitch performed on French National Radio at the age of eleven and graduated from the Paris Conservatory at the young age of sixteen where his principal violin teachers were Henryk Szeryng and Josef Gingold. Upon graduation he received three first prizes and later on served as assistant to Mr. Gingold at Indiana University. Israelievitch studied chamber music under Janos Starker and William Primrose.

In 1972, Georg Solti appointed him assistant concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Just twenty-three years of age at the time, he was the Orchestra's youngest musician. After six seasons in Chicago, where he founded the Chicago Pops Orchestra and acted as music director of the Chicago Chamber Music Players, he joined the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra where he served as concertmaster for ten years.

In addition to Toronto Symphony Orchestra activities, Mr. Israelievitch is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician. He has collaborated with Solti, Carlo Maria Giulini, Raymond Leppard and Leonard Slatkin among many others. His concerto repertoire includes all of the standard works, in addition to The Darkly Splendid Earth: The Lonely Traveller, by R. Murray Schafer commissioned for him by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1991.

Mr. Israelievitch has played chamber music with such distinguished artists as Emmanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman and YoYo Ma. A champion of contemporary music, he has premiered and/or recorded pieces by numerous composers, including Michael Colgrass, Samuel Adler, Jeffrey Ryan, Raymond Luedeke, Murray Adaskin and Alain Wéber. He has recently formed a duo with his son Michael, a percussionist and the two are building a rich repertoire of pieces written for them.

Israelievitch is a member of the New Arts Trio, a 26-year-old chamber group that has been trio-in-residence at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State since 1978. During the seven-week Chautauqua summer festival, he teaches an international class of violinists and coaches chamber music groups. During the summer of 2004, his fifth year at Chatauqua, Mr. Israelievitch performed the Bruch Concerto No.2 with the Chautauqua Symphony.

Mr. Israelievitch's discography includes the Juno-nominated Suite Hebraique, Bruch's Second Concerto in D Minor, and the recent releases Suite Franciase, Suite Enfantine, and Suite Fantaisie. Soon to be released are a solo suite and several discs of contemporary music.

He was awarded a knighthood by the French government in 1995, in the order of Arts and Letters. In 2004 he was promoted to the honorable status of Officer.

In February 2004 Mr. Israelievitch premiered the Concerto for Percussion and Violin written by Lawrence Rosenthal for him and Michael. It was first performed in La Joya, California and then in San Diego. A recent residency in Montreal included master classes at the Conservatoire Nationale de Music and McGill University. In June 2004 Mr. Israelievitch performed the Jeffrey Ryan concerto with the Vancouver Symphony under the direction of Bramwell Tovey. This concerto was also commissioned for Jacques and premiered by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Jacques Israelievitch - violin:

Music for Organ & Violin
Saturday, May 6, 2006
7:30 p.m.
Tickets $20

AND
Sunday, May 7, 2006
7:30 p.m.
Tickets $10/$5