Biography
Gingold was born in Brest-Litovsk, Russian Empire (now Brest, Belarus), and emigrated in 1920 to the United States where he studied violin with Vladimir Graffman in New York City. He then moved to Belgium for several years to study with master violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. He gave the first performance of Ysaÿe's 3rd Sonata for Solo Violin. In 1937, Gingold won a spot in the NBC Symphony Orchestra, with Arturo Toscanini as its conductor; he then served as the concertmaster (and occasional soloist) of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and later was the Cleveland Orchestra's concertmaster under conductor George Szell.
Gingold edited numerous violin technique books and orchestral excerpt collections. He taught at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music for more than thirty years, until his death in 1995. His pupils included Anne Shih, Joshua Bell, Shony Alex Braun, Andrés Cárdenes, Corey Cerovsek, Cyrus Forough, Miriam Fried, Endre Granat, Ulf Hoelscher, Hu Nai-yuan, Jacques Israelievitch, Leonidas Kavakos, Chin Kim, Ronald Lantz, Jaime Laredo, Joseph Silverstein, and Gwen Thompson.
Gingold was a founder of the quadrennial Indianapolis Violin Competition. He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.
A detailed literary portrait of Josef Gingold is included in the book, Quintet, Five Journeys toward Musical Fulfillment, by David Blum (Cornell University Press, 1999). It originally appeared as an article in the 4 February 1991 issue of The New Yorker.
Gingold died in Bloomington, Indiana in 1995.
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