Mr. Brahinsky, a native of Dallas, earned a Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude and a Master of Music in violin performance from the University of Houston as a student of Fredell Lack; his previous teachers included Kenneth Sarch, Norma Davidson, Willa Howells, and Henry Brahinsky. He also attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a National Merit Scholar and earned a Bachelor of Science degree magna cum laude in mathematics from the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Mr. Brahinsky free-lanced extensively as a violinist and taught privately. Besides music his interests include mathematics, genealogy, science, travel, vegetarian cooking, reading, editing Wikipedia articles, and creating cryptic-crossword clues. He and his wife, pianist, piano teacher, and composer April Abraham Brahinsky, live in San Antonio.