Felix Borowski (March 10, 1872 – September 6, 1956) was a British/American composer and teacher. He taught composers

Silvestre Revueltas Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez (December 31, 1899 – October 5, 1940) was a Mexican composer of classical music, a violinist and a conducting, conductor. Life Revueltas was born in Santiago Papasquiaro in Durango, and studied at the National Co ...

and Louise Cooper Spindle at Chicago Musical College.

Life and career

Felix Borowski was of Polish descent but was born in the English village of

Burton-in-Kendal Burton-in-Kendal is a village and civil parish on the extreme southern edge of Cumbria, England. The parish contains around 660 houses and in the 2001 census had a population of 1,411, increasing at the 2011 census to 1,497. Historically wi ...

, Westmorland. His father, who was quite a musician, was of distinguished Polish stock. His mother was English and very accomplished in music. His father gave him his first instruction on the piano as well as on the violin . He was educated in London and at the

Cologne Conservatory Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 million ...

. He then taught the piano and the violin for a while in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

. At this time Borowski had begun to publish smaller compositions for piano and violin. Somewhat later his compositions won strong commendation from composers such as

Edvard Grieg Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the foremost Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of ...

Theodor Leschetizky Theodor Leschetizky (sometimes spelled Leschetitzky, pl, Teodor Leszetycki; 22 June 1830 – 14 November 1915 was an Austrian- Polish pianist, professor, and composer born in Landshut in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then a crown land ...

, Sauer and other renowned masters. In 1896, Borowski moved to the USA to become Director of the

Chicago Musical College Chicago Musical College is a division of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. History Founding Dr. Florenz Ziegfeld Sr (1841–1923), founded the college in 1867 as the Chicago Academy of Music. The institution h ...

. His connection with this musical college continued until 1925 when he resigned to devote himself to private teaching and to composition. During his working life in the U.S.A. he was a composer, teacher, and newspaper critic in Chicago. He was the programme annotator for the

Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenu ...

from 1908-1956, and the CSO holds a collection of his original compositions as well as arrangements by him of the works of others. In 1917, he was elected as an honorary member of

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America (colloquially known as Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Phi Mu Alpha, or simply Sinfonia) () is an American collegiate social fraternity for men with a special interest in music. The fraternity is open to men "w ...

music fraternity.

Compositions

One of his compositions for piano and violin ('Adoration') was recorded on Edison Blue Amberol in 1914 (#2475) by Richard Czerwonky (1886-1949), also an American musician of Polish descent, being an outstanding violin-player and orchestra conductor at his time. Borowski wrote three large-scale and romantic Sonatas for the organ (published 1904, 1906 and 1924), and his compositions for orchestra include a poem ''Semiramis'' and 3 symphonies (c.1932, c.1933, c.1938).

Notes

External links

*
Felix Borowski Papers
at

the Newberry Library The Newberry Library is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities and located on Washington Square in Chicago, Illinois. It has been free and open to the public since 1887. Its collections encompass a variety of topics rela ...

1872 births 1956 deaths American male classical composers American classical composers English classical composers People from Burton-in-Kendal British emigrants to the United States {{UK-composer-stub