Joshua Epstein

Joshua Epstein was born in 1940 in Tel Aviv

Joshua Epstein was born in Tel Aviv on November 14, 1940, the only child of Anna and Julian Epstein. His mother was born in Izmir to a family of Romanian-Jewish origin, and his father came from Essen, Germany, and reached Tel Aviv in 1936. At home he spoke French with his mother and German with his father, and Hebrew outside.

He began violin lessons with Yariv Ezrahi at age 8. At 19 he moved to Belgium and studied at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels with Arthur Grumiaux. He then studied with André Gertler at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel from 1962 to 1965.

From 1966 to 1972 he was Gertler's assistant at the music academy in Hanover. He won second prize at the first Sibelius Violin Competition in 1965 and first prize at the Carl Flesch Competition in London in 1968. He then performed as a soloist with many European orchestras and gave recitals in Europe, North America and Asia.

From 1972 to 1978 he was first violinist of the Bartholdy String Quartet, which won the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis and the Grand Prix du disque. Between 1971 and 2005 he performed all 24 Paganini Caprices in concert 6 times, and he recorded them in 1997. He has lived and taught in Saarbrücken since 1978.