Mark Lubotsky was a Soviet and German violinist, music teacher, writer, and memoirist. He was born in Leningrad on May 18, 1931. In 1938 he entered the Central Music School in Moscow, and from 1949 studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Professor Abram Yampolsky. He later pursued postgraduate study with David Oistrakh and taught at the Gnessin Institute.
Lubotsky was a friend of Alfred Schnittke and gave the premieres of two of Schnittke’s violin concertos and his violin sonatas. Schnittke dedicated a concerto and three sonatas to him. Lubotsky’s repertoire included works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Ernest Chausson, Britten, Roslavets, Prokofiev, and Schnittke.
In 1976 Lubotsky moved from the Soviet Union to the Netherlands and later settled in Germany. He taught at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam and, from 1986, at the Hamburg University of Music and the International Schnittke Academy in Hamburg. His students included Lisa Batiashvili and Anton Barakhovsky. He also gave master classes in Tokyo, Auckland, London, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, and Gothenburg, and performed across Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
Lubotsky published the autobiographical novel Violin Odyssey in 2006 and the novella The Unbending Woman in 2009. Its central character is Dora Leka, a composer and poet. His publications also included Immortality of the Maple Leaf (2015).
Organizations
- Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory
- Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory
- Gnessin Russian Academy of Music
- Central Music School – Academy of Performing Arts (Moscow)
- Sibelius Academy
- Conservatory of Amsterdam
- Hamburg University of Music and Theatre
- Guildhall School of Music and Drama