Tom Borrow

Pianist Tom Borrow earned great public and critical acclaim in 2019 when, with only 36 hours’ notice, he replaced renowned pianist Khatia Buniatishvili in a series of 12 concerts, performing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G on tour with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Since then, Borrow has been welcomed by many of the world’s major orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Czech Philharmonic, Basque National Orchestra, Danish National Symphony, NHK Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, St. Louis, Atlanta, New Jersey, and Pittsburgh, among others. Leading conductors with whom he has collaborated include Bychkov, Luisi, Eschenbach, Petrenko, Fischer, Oramo, Zhang, Denève, Saraste, Suzuki, Wellber, Treviño, Oundjian, Emelyanychev, and Elder. Borrow has also toured to Eastern Europe with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, to regular standing ovations, and to South Korea with the Tel Aviv Soloists.

Equally in demand in recital, he has appeared at the BBC Proms, Verbier, and Ruhr festivals, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Berlin Konzerthaus, Vienna Konzerthaus, Vancouver Recital Society, Aspen Music Festival, Festival Piano aux Jacobins (Toulouse), Aldeburgh Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Bolzano Concert Society (Italy), and Bellerive Festival (Geneva).

Borrow’s 2026–27 season includes debut recitals here at Cal Performances, as well as with the Gilmore Piano Festival and on Washington Performing Arts’ Hayes Piano Series; chamber music in the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Winter Festival; and concerto appearances with the symphony orchestras of Dallas and Atlanta.

Following recognition as a recent BBC New Generation Artist, and by International Piano and Gramophone magazines and Musical America, Borrow was later presented with the prestigious Terence Judd-Hallé Orchestra Award and the Alte Oper Frankfurt Young Artist Prize.

Across 2024 and 2025, he was Artist in Residence with the São Paulo Symphony (OSESP), during its 70th anniversary season, and was subsequently named to a third artist residency of his career for 2025–26, with the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini during its 50th anniversary season.

Borrow has won all of the national piano competitions in Israel, taking First Prize at the Israeli Radio & Jerusalem Symphony Young Artist Competition in Jerusalem and three top prizes at the “Piano Forever” Competition in Ashdod (in three different age categories). In 2018, he won the prestigious Maurice M. Clairmont Award, given to a single promising artist once every two years by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and Tel-Aviv University.

Born in Tel Aviv in 2000, Borrow began studying piano at age five. A protégé of Murray Perahia, he has performed as soloist with all the major orchestras of his native country, and has had the privilege of participating in master classes with such prominent artists and pedagogues as Sir András Schiff, Christoph Eschenbach, Richard Goode, and Menahem Pressler, among many others.