Igor Gorin

Igor Gorin (October 26, 1904 – March 24, 1982) was an Austrian baritone and music teacher.

Gorin was born Ignatz Greenberg on October 26, 1904, in the small village of Grodek in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, Sholom Greenberg, was a rabbi and a Talmudist who taught religion in Grodek and in the neighboring provinces. Igor was not close to his father; it was his beloved mother, Yente Moritz Greenberg, who passed on her love of music to her son.

Igor’s father enrolled him in the Talmudist school where Igor displayed an amazing aptitude for the orthodox Jewish liturgy, which he committed to memory. He mastered Hebrew and eventually spoke eight languages fluently. He also sang in the local synagogue choir.

In 1919, when Igor was 15, the Greenberg family moved to Vienna, Austria. Living conditions in Vienna were not much better than they had been in Grodek. Igor worked at many different jobs during these years: in an iron factory, a tailor shop, and delivering milk. The work hours were from 6 am until 8 pm, 6 days a week. In what little free time he had, he visited the public library and sat in on many lectures at the Urania, a tuition-free night school. On Sundays he would often go to a movie theater and he developed a fascination with America. Like many, he loved Westerns, and cowboys and horses would forever fascinate him.

Either as a result of auditioning for a synagogue choir or because a neighbor, who overheard him singing, had Igor audition for a local choir director, his singing drew the attention of Viktor Fuchs, one of the most distinguished voice teachers in Vienna. Though the young man’s scruffy and emaciated appearance was repellent, Fuchs would say of the audition years later, “I knew this boy had something, for he was so tenacious in his desire to sing.” As a result, in 1925, Fuchs offered Igor free lessons with Robert Traniewsky, one of his assistants. After recovering from a bout with tuberculosis, Gorin studied at the Vienna Music Academy from 1926 to 1929, studying piano, music theory and formal voice training.

...
Wikipedia