Gaston Borch

Gaston Louis Christopher Borch (8 March 1871 – 14 February 1926) was a French composer, arranger, conductor, cellist and author. His works include orchestral music, opera and music for silent films. He played and conducted with orchestras in Europe and the USA.

Borch was born in Guînes, Pas de Calais, France. His mother, Emma Hennequin, a pianist and soprano, was a friend and pupil of Jules Massenet, whom she met when he stayed at her father's boarding house, and with whom she is known to have performed. His father, Christopher Wolner Borch, was Norwegian. Borch's sister Frida was also an accomplished pianist.

Borch played the cello. He studied for three years with Massenet in France, with Jules Delsart and also at the Valand School of Fine Arts in Sweden. During the 1890s he spent time variously as conductor of the Christiania Orchestral Society and the Central Theatre in Christiana (now Oslo), and was also a visiting conductor in various European countries. His reported conducting credits include the Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra; Brussels Opera Orchestra; Société Symphonique, Lille; Crystal Palace Orchestra, London; Harmonie Royale, Antwerp; Gewerbehaus Orchestra, Dresden; and the Musikforeningen of Bergen (1898-1899).

Between 1898 and 1906 he worked as a musician and conductor in the USA. He was engaged as a cellist with the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in 1899, worked with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Syracuse University, and was principal cello of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra 1903-1906, under Victor Herbert. In 1901 Borch's patent application for a device to amplify the vibrations from a piano indicates he was living at the time in Duluth, Minnesota. He spent some time in Europe in 1906 as conductor of the Lausanne Symphony Orchestra. He conducted the Grieg Jubilee Concerts in New York in 1907. He was for a time a faculty member of the Pennsylvania College of Music.

...
Wikipedia