1743 Guarneri del Gesu violin, known as "The Brusilow"
Anshel Brusilow (August 14, 1928 – January 15, 2018) was an American violinist, conductor, and music educator at the collegiate level.[1]
Early life and education
Brusilow was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1928, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants Leon and Dora Brusilow. 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.[2]
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 in 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,[5] 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].[6][7] In 1973, after a successful tour of Central and South America, Brusilow was summarily fired[8] after the Symphony's board of directors came under censure when it became public that composers were paying to have their works performed.[9]
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.[11]
National Patron, Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity[12]
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)[2][13]
Brusilow's violin and bows
Soon after becoming concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Brusilow purchased a 1743 Guarneri del Gesu violin[14] (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), 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).[15][16] 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.[14] 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.[2]
Brusilow parents, Leon Brusilow[iii](né Leiser Brusilovsky; born 1897 Kremenchug; naturalized 1927 ED Pa; died 1968) and Dora Brusilow (née Epstein; born 1902 Novorossiya; naturalized 1928 ED Pa; died 1977), married March 12, 1919. They immigrated to the United States, arriving with Anshel's brother, Nathan Brusilow (née Nachman Brusilow; 1920–2004),[iii] at the Port of New York July 22, 1922, aboard the SS Zeeland.
Brusilow married Marilyn Rae Dow on December 23, 1951, in San Francisco. They had three children.[2]
^Alexander Hilsberg (1897–1961) had been a violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1926 to 1951; from 1936 to 1951, under Eugene Ormandy, he was concertmaster.
^Norman Carol replaced Brusilow as concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, effective August 1, 1966, and served in that role for 28 years (until 1994). Carol, like Brusilow, (a) was a native of Philadelphia, (b) was born in 1928, (c) had parents of Ukrainian descent, (d) studied violin with Efrem Zimbalist, (e) had been concertmaster of the New Orleans Symphony (f) began playing a 1743 Guarneri del Gesu violin, the "Spalding," when he became concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
^ abLeon Brusilow (1897–1968), father of Anshel Brusilow, is not the same person as Leon Brusiloff (1898–1973), longtime violinist and orchestra conductor. Anshel Brusilow's late brother, Nathan Brusilow (née Nachman Brusilow; 1920–2004), a longtime notable classical clarinetist from Philadelphia, is not the same person as Nathan Brusiloff (1904–1951) — Leon Brusiloff's brother and also a violinist.
