Adam Han-Gorski

Adam Han-Gorski

Adam Han-Gorski is one of few remaining Holocaust survivors. After forced departure from his hometown Lviv, he settled with his family in Upper Silesia in Poland, where he started his violin lessons at the age of six, and gave his debut as a soloist with an orchestra on March 21st, 1948; an event which was recorded by Polish Film and can be seen on Youtube.

After High School, Adam's family emigrated to Israel in 1957, and Adam became a recipient of the AICF scholarship. He studied at the Israeli Music Academy, where some of his younger colleagues included Itzhak Perlman and P. Zuckerman.

Adam graduated (as a student of O. Partos) in 1961. He auditioned for Jascha Heifetz in Paris, was accepted to the Mater Class at USC in Los Angeles, where he also had the opportunity to study with such luminaries as William Primrose and Gregor Piatigorsky.

His first position was that of a Concertmaster with the Metropolitan Opera National Co., which toured 75 US and Canadian cities in 45 weeks. He continued for three years as a first violinist in the Cleveland Orchestra, followed by a concertmaster position in Syracuse and then the Minnesota Orchestra, where he had appeared over 40 times as a soloist in just five seasons.

In 1976, Adam left Minneapolis to become the concertmaster of the Vienna Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra (ORF) for the following 25 years. He left Vienna in 2004 to move back to Minneapolis, where he has married a local businesswoman. They have been making their home in the City of Medicine Lake. He is still active as a concert musician, teacher, and clinician and on the other side, enjoys activities on a variety of electric vehicles.