Jacques Israelievitch

Internationally-renowned violinist Jacques Israelievitch enjoyed a varied and richly rewarding career as concertmaster, soloist, chamber musician, teacher, and conductor.  As one of North America’s most respected performing artists, he appeared regularly throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Born in France, Mr. Israelievitch made his solo debut on French National Radio at the age of 11.  At 16, he graduated from the Paris Conservatory with three first prizes, and was subsequently a prizewinner at the International Paganini Competition.  He studied with such esteemed teachers as Henryk Szeryng, Janos Starker, William Primrose and ultimately, Josef Gingold, for whom he later served as Teaching Assistant at Indiana University.

Appearing frequently with orchestras around the world, Mr. Israelievitch’s career included collaborations with such conductors as Sir Georg Solti, Carlo Maria Giulini, Leonard Slatkin, Raymond Leppard, Sir Andrew Davis, Günther Herbig, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Stéfane Denève, Thomas Dausgaard, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, among others.  He performed as soloist with many orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, CBC Radio Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Lithuania, and the China National Symphony Orchestra.

At age 23, Mr. Israelievitch was appointed by Sir Georg Solti as Assistant Concertmaster of the renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra, thus making him the youngest musician in the orchestra.  In 1978, after six seasons in Chicago, he became Concertmaster of the Saint Louis Symphony, a position he held for ten years.

Following his tenure in Saint Louis, from 1988 to 2008 Mr. Israelievitch served as Concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO)—the longest tenure for that position in the ensemble’s history.  His tenures with both the Saint Louis and Toronto Symphony Orchestras were highlighted by annual appearances as soloist and conductor, and his entire Concertmaster career is featured in Anne Mischakoff Heiles’s 2008 book, America’s Concertmasters.

A lifelong advocate for contemporary music, Mr. Israelievitch premiered and recorded many new works, including R. Murray Schafer’s The Darkly Splendid Earth: The Lonely Traveler, which was commissioned for him by the TSO and subsequently recorded for CBC Records.  In 2004, he performed Jeffrey Ryan’s violin concerto, The Chalice of Becoming, with conductor Bramwell Tovey and the Vancouver Symphony.  This work, also commissioned for him, was premiered by Mr. Israelievitch and the TSO.

Beyond his solo and orchestral activity, Mr. Israelievitch was an accomplished and devoted chamber musician, performing with such distinguished artists as Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman and Yo-Yo Ma.  He was the violinist of the New Arts Trio, founder of the Toronto Symphony Quartet, and recorded with pianists John Greer, Robert Kortgaard, Christina Petrowska Quilico, Stéphane Lemelin, Kanae Matsumoto, and Stephanie Sebastian.  In addition to regular performances on the violin, in 2008 he began concertizing on the viola.

Teaching was another constant in Mr. Israelievitch’s career.  From 2008 to 2015, he served as a full-time violin and viola professor on the Fine Arts faculty at Toronto’s York University, while also teaching at the University of Toronto and Royal Conservatory of Music.  For sixteen summers, he was on the violin faculty at the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York, mentoring an international class of violinists, coaching chamber music groups, and serving as Chair of the string department.  Guest master classes over the years brought him to Florida’s New World Symphony, the Manhattan School of Music, Eastman School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin College, the University of Michigan, Meadowmount School of Music, McGill University, Conservatoire de Montréal, Orford Music Festival, the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and the Toho School of Music in Tokyo, among other institutions.

As conductor, Mr. Israelievitch led the Saint Louis Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Windsor Symphony, Orchestre du Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris, and other ensembles in North America, France, and Japan.  He was Founder and Music Director of the Chicago Pops Orchestra, the Pro Musica Society of Chicago, and the Koffler Chamber Orchestra at the Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto.

Mr. Israelievitch’s discography includes the Juno Award-nominated Suite Hebraique; Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Chamber Orchestra of Lithuania; Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364, with violist Steven Dann and the CBC Radio Orchestra; Beethoven’s Romances with the TSO; an all-French album with the Mirage Quintet; two recordings with the New Arts Trio; French Violin Sonatas with pianist Kanae Matsumoto; Fancies and Interludes with pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico; and the albums Suite Française, Suite Enfantine, Suite Fantaisie, Solo Suite, and Hammer and Bow, the last-named with his son, percussionist Michael Israelievitch.

Mr. Israelievitch is the featured violin soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet conducted by Leonard Slatkin on RCA Red Seal, and can be heard in orchestral recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Decca, Sony/BMG, Telarc, and Finlandia.

In 2006, Mr. Israelievitch released the first-ever complete recording of Kreutzer’s 42 studies for solo violin — a project that has garnered worldwide recognition.

Jacques Israelievitch relished all kinds of musical activity.  One of his madcap ventures was the Marathon Concert.  This began in March 1985 when he organized dozens of musicians to play a 12-hour series of music by J.S. Bach to celebrate the composer’s 300th birthday.  His own performance marathons began in Canada, often constituting “first-evers”.  These included a 6-hour performance of the 10 Beethoven violin and piano sonatas (a feat he essayed twice); a 4-hour performance of all Brahms’s works both for violin and for viola; and, shortly before his death, an almost 8-hour performance of all 28 Mozart Sonatas for violin and piano.  Another such ‘marathon’ concert was his final concerto performance as Concertmaster of the TSO, when he performed three concerti on one program: Bach’s Double Concerto for Two Violins with longtime stand-partner Mark Skazinetsky; a world-premiere Double Concerto by Kelly-Marie Murphy, joined by his percussionist son, Michael; and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

In 1995, on behalf of the Institute for International Affairs, B’nai Brith presented Jacques Israelievitch with a human rights award in recognition of his outstanding moral leadership. That same year, he was inducted by the French government into the Order of Arts and Letters and in 2004 was promoted to the status of Officer.  In 2015, he was appointed to the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian honour.  He was also the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to him by the Toronto Musicians’ Association in recognition of his distinguished contribution to the performing arts in Canada.

Jacques Israelievitch passed away on September 5, 2015.  Despite a cancer diagnosis six months earlier, he was determined to complete one final project: a multi-disc set of the complete Mozart Sonatas and Variations with pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico.  The first volume was released in Spring 2016, and Volume Two in Fall 2017. In honor of the 10th year since his death, all six CDs are being released as a boxed set by Navona Records on February 21, 2025.