Rotislav Dubinsky Music Scholarship
(est. 2007) The Rostislav Dubinsky Music Scholarship was established by Luba Edlina-Dubinsky in memory of her husband. Each year the scholarship is awarded to undergraduate and graduate students specializing in chamber music, who maintain a record of academic excellence.
Rostislav Dubinsky, born in Ukraine in 1923, was a violinist best known as the founding first violinist of the Borodin Quartet and the violinist of the Borodin Trio. Dubinsky began playing his violin with instruction from his father until his family moved to Moscow where he was enrolled at the Central Music School in 1933. After graduating from Central Music School where he studied with Abram Yampolsky, he began studying at the Moscow Conservatory. This is where he was first introduced to chamber music and quartet playing.
In 1945, Dubinsky founded the Moscow Philharmonic Quartet with fellow Conservatory students, Vladimir Rabei (second violin), Rudolf Barshai (viola), and Valentin Berlinsky (cello). From 1954, this quartet was known as the Borodin Quartet. By the time Dubinsky left the Borodin Quartet in 1976, the ensemble had performed around 3,000 concerts worldwide. The Borodin Quartet played the standard quartet repertoire, but is known to be closely related to Dmitri Shostakovich whose works were introduced by the Quartet to the West. In addition to Shostakovich, the Borodin Quartet performed premiere performances of works by Alfred Schnittke, Boris Tchaikovsky, Lev Knipper, and Moisei Weinberg.
After teaching at the conservatories of The Hague and Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Dubinsky and his wife, Luba Edlina, joined the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music in 1981 with Edlina as Professor of Piano and Dubinsky as Professor of Chamber Music. The chamber music program flourished with Dubinsky at the helm. He coached most of the student chamber ensembles, organized the MAC Chamber Music Festival occurring at the end of each semester, and was a regular faculty member at the annual IU Summer String Academy. Dubinsky developed young chamber musicians who later became prominent, and left lasting impressions for music students during his time at the Jacobs School. He expressed of music, "Music never comes by itself. It has to be invited by painstaking daily work. Then, maybe, one day it will favor you."
The Rostislav Dubinsky Music Scholarship was established by his wife, Luba Edlina-Dubinsky, in honor of his memory. This scholarship is awarded to outstanding undergraduate and graduate students who specialize in either chamber music or small ensembles. Preferences will be given to students who participate in the Rostislav Dubinsky Chamber Music Festival.