The Igor Gorin Memorial Award provides financial assistance to young opera singers. The assistance may be used for a variety of purposes including general living expenses and professional development.

The award was established 1987 by Mary S. Gorin in memory of her husband, a world-renowned opera singer.

Mr. Gorin was a Russian refugee who in the late 1920s escaped to Vienna before immigrating to the United States. Mr. Gorin studied at the Vienna Conservatory and later as a member of the Czechoslovakian Opera Company.

He began his career in this country as a cantor of a synagogue in Providence Rhode Island and went on to perform in radio, television, film and on the stage. His career spanned the 1930s through the 1960s and he gained a worldwide reputation as the “Prince of Baritones.”

Along with his wife, the former actress Mary Smith, Mr. Gorin retired to Tucson in 1965. Soon after, then University of Arizona president Richard Harvill invited him to begin a second career teaching opera at the university.

Mr. Gorin never forgot his early struggles to launch a career in music and believing that studying music strengthens one’s character and provides young people with a sense of accomplishment and worth, Mrs. Gorin established the Igor Gorin Memorial Scholarship Fund with CFSA.