Henryk Szeryng

Henryk Szeryng
Henryk Szeryng, 1964
Born	22 September 1918 Żelazowa Wola, Kingdom of Poland
Died	3 March 1988 Kassel, West Germany
Citizenship	Mexico
Occupation	Violinist, composer

Henryk Szeryng (usually pronounced HEN-rik SHEH-ring) (22 September 1918 – 3 March 1988) was a Polish-Mexican violinist and composer.

He was born in Warsaw,Poland on 22 September 1918 into a wealthy Jewish family. The surname "Szeryng" is a Polish transliteration of his Yiddish surname, which nowadays would be spelled "Shering" in the modern Yiddish-to-English transliteration.

Henryk started piano and harmony lessons with his mother when he was 5, and at age 7 turned to the violin, receiving instruction from Maurice Frenkel. After studies with Carl Flesch in Berlin (1929–32), he went to Paris to continue his studies with Jacques Thibaud at the Conservatory, graduating with a premier prix in 1937.

He made his solo debut on 6 January 1933 playing the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under Romanian conductor George Georgescu. From 1933 to 1939 he studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger.

When World War II broke out, General Wladyslaw Sikorski - the Premier of the Polish government in exile - asked Szeryng, who was fluent in seven languages, to serve as his liaison officer and interpreter. Szeryng took these positions and discontinued his studies, although he continued to perform on the violin, giving over 300 concerts for Allied troops all over the world. When he accompanied Sikorski on a mission to Mexico in 1941 seeking a home for 4,000 Polish refugees, the positive reception moved Szeryng so deeply that he decided to become a Mexican naturalized citizen, and did so in 1946. In 1945 he accepted the request (made in 1943) that he head the string department of National University of Mexico.