Boris Barere

Boris Barere (b. 10 July 1921, Odesa, Russian Empire) is an American pianist of Russian-Jewish origins, centenarian, and son of renowned virtuoso Simon Barere (1896—1951). His current whereabouts and retirement date are unknown; some of the latest interviews date to 2015. (As of late 2023, Barere would be 102 years old.) He began learning piano at four with his parents; Barere's father, a recent graduate of St. Petersburg Conservatory, served as the Kiyv Conservatory professor and had an illustrious concert career. However, the Soviet economy was disintegrating under the harsh Joseph Stalin leadership, while antisemitism grew stronger; in 1928, the Bareres family relocated to Riga in Latvia, where Simon managed to get a post of USSR Baltics & Scandinavia Cultural Ambassador (his wife's brother and Boris' uncle, cellist Franz Vlashek, also resided in Riga). In 1931, his father obtained the exit visas for the family, and they relocated to Germany, where Simon accepted an offer to conduct a series of concerts in Berlin. The timing couldn't be worse as right after their arrival, the first Nazi sanctions and restrictions against Jews began; Simon's concert arrangements were canceled. Unable to secure any orchestral or academic positions, his father had to survive on odd jobs playing piano at local vaudevilles. In 1933, Boris and his family fled to Sweden, where he attended school and continued studying piano. By 1940, as Adolf Hitler embarked on the Second World War, even Scandinavia became unsafe. Thus, Boris went to the United States with his mother, where Simon Barere already settled four years prior. In 1941, Bareres moved from New York to Chicago, where Boris began his studies with Sergei Tarnowsky, one of Vladimir Horowitz's former teachers. The following year, Bareres again relocated, now renting a house in Scarsdale, New York. Twenty-year-old Boris hadn't naturalized as a US citizen yet and received a demand from the US Army to join the military draft or get deported; Barere enlisted and trained at several military bases, including Fort Riley in Kansas (where Boris founded a local church to occasionally perform music with his Army buddy, violinist Arnold Belnick.) In 1943, Barere was deployed to Casablanca, Morocco, and subsequently participated in the Angio Beach invasion in Italy. (He fought alongside actor Burt Lancaster (2) (1913—1994), and they became close friends.) After WWII, Boris Barere returned to New York and studied with Rosina Lhévinne at the Juilliard School. He established a prolific stage career, primarily concentrated on chamber music, and made several albums for the Cembal D'Amour label. Barere often collaborated with such prominent musicians as flutist Julius Baker or violinists David Nadien, Berl Senofsky, Michael Rabin, and Ossy Renardy. Boris gave several duo piano recitals with his father, Simon Barere, including their performances at Carnegie Hall. (A posthumous Father & Son CD/DVD compilation came out in 2016, featuring most of their joint recordings and surviving video footage.) In later years, Boris Barere joined George Balanchine's New York City Ballet company — he participated in stage productions and made studio recordings of Schumann's Symphonic Etudes and selections from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, among others.