Director and Conductor: Ronen Borshevsky

The Gary Bertini Israeli Choir was founded in 2009 by Haggi Goren and Ronen Borshevsky. Since its establishment, the choir has performed with the Israel Philharmonic under the batons of Zubin Mehta, Lahav Shani, Kurt Masur, Herbert Blomstedt, Vladimir Jurowski, Asher Fisch, Krzysztof Penderecki, Dan Ettinger, Yoel Levi, Manfred Honeck, and many others. It has also appeared with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.
Among its performances with the Israel Philharmonic are Brahms’ German Requiem, Mahler’s Second and Third Symphonies, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Penderecki’s Polish Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Holst’s The Planets, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells, Britten’s War Requiem, as well as numerous operas by Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Bizet, and Strauss. With the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, the choir performed Noam Sheriff’s Mechaye HaMetim (Revival of the Dead) under the composer’s baton, and most recently, it performed Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ronen Borshevsky.
Bertini Choir, the choir’s representative body, consists of approximately 26 singers. It focuses on a cappella repertoire from all musical periods and performs with orchestras and chamber ensembles in Israel and across Europe. The choir has appeared with the Israel Camerata Jerusalem, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, Rome’s Nova Amadeus Orchestra, Interpreti Veneziani, and the Barrocade Ensemble. It has enjoyed great success on concert tours in Italy (2012), Prague and Vienna (2014), Burgundy (2017), and in Venice, Mantua, and Nuremberg (2022).
Ronen Borshevsky, Music Director and Conductor of the Gary Bertini Israeli Choir, also serves as Head of the Choral Conducting Department and Senior Lecturer at the Buchmann–Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University. He is the conductor of the Ihud Choir and a sought-after lecturer on a wide range of musical topics. In his early career, he won conducting prizes at international competitions in Japan and Denmark (1998) and participated in the Tanglewood Festival conducting program. He trained with Bernard Haitink, Seiji Ozawa, and Hans Graf. Borshevsky holds a Master’s degree from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. His principal teachers were Prof. Noam Sheriff and Prof. Mendi Rodan. He has conducted most major Israeli orchestras, including the Israel Philharmonic, as well as orchestras abroad. In 2006, he led the ‘German–Israeli Philharmonia’ Project, held in Israel and Germany, conducting Mendelssohn’s Elijah. The highlight of the tour was the festive concert marking the anniversary of Mendelssohn’s death at the Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig.