Siegfried Borris

Full biography Siegfried Borris

Siegfried Borris was a German composer, music educator, and musicologist, born on November 4, 1906, in Berlin, Germany. He spent a significant part of his career teaching, advocating for new music and writing for younger musicians. In addition, he directed the Julius Stern Institute in Berlin.

Borris began his musical education at an early age, studying piano with Leonid Kreutzer and Siegfried Ochs, among others. He later studied composition and musicology at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and graduated with a doctorate in musicology in 1931.

Despite being of Jewish descent, Borris remained active in the German music scene during the Nazi period, until his emigration in 1938. After leaving Germany, he lived in Denmark and then in England, where he continued to compose and to teach music.

Borris’s compositional output includes works for orchestra, chamber music, vocal music, and piano music. He was also an influential teacher and an advocate of new music, promoting the works of composers like Paul Hindemith and Hans Werner Henze. Some of his notable compositions include his Sonata for Two Pianos (1940), Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano (1944), and The Donkey and the Driver for female choir (1971).

Siegfried Borris died on August 23, 1987, at the age of 80 in West Berlin, leaving behind a legacy of significant contributions to the world of music in Germany and beyond.