Hasse Borup, violin, was in 2005 appointed Assistant Professor in violin and chamber music at the University of Utah School of Music in Salt Lake City.  This important position took him away from the performance faculty at the University of Virginia, his previous appointment. Apart from these activities, he keeps an active schedule as a chamber music performer with various groups such as Washington Musica Viva and the Grand Teton Music Festival.  During the 03/04 Season he joined the Guarneri String Quartet for performances of the Brahms Op. 18 String Sextet to critical acclaim.   In April of 2004 he performed the Sibelius Concerto with the Charlottesville Symphony and joined the National Philharmonic Summer Seminar faculty and Chamber Music Series.  Most recent performances, include The Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna, The Central Conservatory in Beijing, Nanjing Normal University as well as concerts in Washington DC, Columbus and Salt Lake City.  A CD, entitled American Fantasies will be released on Centaur Records in December 2007.  This CD features works for violin an piano by Arnold Schoenberg and his American students and followers, John Cage, Leon Kirchner, Gunther Schuller and Donald Harris.  The German chamber music magazine Ensemble featured the project in an extensive article in June 2007.  Mr. Borup is scheduled to record the complete sonatas by Danish romantic composer Niels W. Gade during in February of 2008 for NAXOS.  In 2006, Mr. Borup was appointed leader of the Chamber Music Institute at the prestigious Music@Menlo Festival in Palo Alto, California by Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han. As an active educator, Mr. Borup wrote an article for The Strad (August 2006) describing a series of instrument-acoustics workshops: the result of groundbreaking collaboration between University of Utah and the Violin Making School of America.

Mr. Borup received his Diploma from the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music, a Graduate Professional Diploma from The Hartt School and a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree (Phi Kappa Phi honors) from University of Maryland.  The dissertation emphasis was on string quartet literature (“Anton Webern’s String Quartet Op.28: A Study of the Work and Its Historic Context”).  His main teachers were David Takeno, London; Roland and Almita Vamos, Oberlin, Ohio; Philip Setzer, Hartt School and Arnold Steinhardt, University of Maryland.  Summer courses and Master classes include “Umeaa Summer Festival,” Sweden with A. Arenkov; “Nice Summer Academy,” France with V. Klimov and a Master class with Felix Galimir at Oberlin Conservatory.   As a founding member of the Coolidge String Quartet, he has studied with the Emerson Quartet (Philip Setzer, Eugene Drucker, Lawrence Dutton, David Finckel), Guarneri Quartet (fellow/assistant to Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree, David Soyer), Isaac Stern,  Hatto Beyerle, William Preucil and others.  The Coolidge Quartet participated in summer programs at the Aspen Music Festival (two-year fellowship, 1997-98), Quartet Institute at Deer Valley with the Muir Quartet (1997-98), Jerusalem Music Encounters (1998), Internationale Konzert Arbeits Wochen in Goslar, Germany (2000-01), Summerfest La Jolla Workshops (1999) and Pablo Casals Festival (2001).

In 1992 Mr. Borup received—as the only Dane—the International Yamaha Music Prize and was a Prizewinner in the National Danish Radio Music Competition. He was invited to play for the Danish Queen and at other honorary concerts, representing the Royal Danish Conservatory (the 1992 opening of the Music Academy in Prague, “Lichtenstein Palace’s” Martinu Hall).  He has received numerous private scholarships, the most prominent being from Knud Højgårds Fond, Augustinus Fonden and Statens Musikråd.  Furthermore, he was for two years given the use of a 1685 Andrea Guarnerius owned by the Danish state.  As concertmaster of the Copenhagen String Orchestra he has concertized throughout Europe, including solo appearances in Venice, Cremona, Paris and Copenhagen.  Mr. Borup has also collaborated with prominent Danish jazz-saxophonist, Benjamin Koppel resulting in a series of crossover concerts, supported by the National Danish Arts Council receiving overwhelming reviews. With British pianist Sophia Rahman, he has performed in England and Denmark.  They commissioned a sonata for violin/viola (one player) and piano from Norwegian composer Frederik Glans and the piece was premiered at the year-long festival “Copenhagen European Cultural Capital, 1996.”  Mr. Borup has worked with two major Danish orchestras: Copenhagen Symphony Orchestra and the National Danish Radio Orchestra, both as first violin player.  In October of 2001 he performed Bright Sheng’s “Four Movements for Piano Trio” with the composer at the piano at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center as part of the “Silk Road Project.”  He was appointed lecturer in violin at Montgomery College, Maryland in the fall of 2001.  

With the Coolidge Quartet Mr. Borup has performed in radio, television (NPR’s Performance Today, Hong Kong Radio, National Danish Radio, Australian Radio and Television, and Radio Television Slovenia) and appeared at concerts in Europe (Germany: “Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele”; Denmark: “Music Harvest Festival for New Music” and “Culture Night Copenhagen,” France, Austria, Slovenia), Central America (Guatemala), USA (New York: Weill Recital Hall, Washington: Corcoran Gallery, Arts Club of Washington, Smithsonian Institution; Boston, Jordan Hall; Hartford; La Jolla; Columbus, among others), Asia (Hong Kong: “Musicarama Festival”) and Australia.  The Quartet received prizes in the National Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and Chamber Music Yellow Springs.  Mr. Borup was Assistant Clinical Professor at the George Washington University, where the Quartet was appointed quartet-in-residence in the fall of 2001.  The residency included evening and lunchtime concert series’, lectures, coachings and outreach activities in collaboration with the Kennedy Center Educational Division.  

The Coolidge Quartet has premiered works by Greg Steinke, Anders Koppel, Peter Sculthorpe, Wing-fai Law, Jason Haney and was invited by Gunther Schuller to perform his Third Quartet in Boston’s Jordan Hall at the composer’s 75^th birthday celebration.  In collaboration with Ohio State University and George Washington University the Quartet won a grant from National Endowment for the Arts to have a quartet written by acclaimed composer Donald Harris.  In 2000 the quartet served on the faculty of the “International Workshops” (organized by American and European String Teacher Association, ASTA/ESTA) in Graz, and was asked by the city of Baden to perform Beethoven quartets at Beethoven’s summer residence (Baden, Austria).  The Quartet has collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution in the creation of the lecture-concert series “Quartet Conversations” (performed on the quartet of Stradivarius instruments, the Axelrod Quartet) designed to educate and spark interest in music among the general audience at the museum. The Coolidge Quartet recorded for the Classico Label and in 1999 film maker Uri Gal-Ed spent three months with the Coolidge Quartet creating a documentary movie called “4/4.”  Four Oaks Company and Walter Scheuer, who also did “Mao to Mozart” with Isaac Stern and “High Fidelity” with the Guarneri Quartet, produced the film. 

Mr. Borup plays a 1992 copy of the ‘Plowden’ Guarneri del Gesu by Samuel Zygmuntowicz, New York.