Gidon Markusovich Kremer (Gidon Kremer) |

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Gidon Kremer is one of the brightest and most extraordinary personalities in the modern musical world. A native of Riga, he began studying music at the age of 4 with his father and grandfather, who were outstanding violinists. At the age of 7 he entered the Riga Music School. At the age of 16, he received the 1967st prize at the republican competition in Latvia, and two years later began studying with David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory. He has won many awards at prestigious international competitions, including the Queen Elizabeth Competition in 1969 and the first prizes at the competitions. N. Paganini (1970) and them. P.I. Tchaikovsky (XNUMX).

These successes launched Gidon Kremer’s illustrious career, during which he gained worldwide recognition and a reputation as one of the most original and creatively compelling artists of his generation. He has performed on almost all the best concert stages in the world with the most famous orchestras in Europe and America, collaborated with the most outstanding conductors of our time.

Gidon Kremer’s repertoire is unusually wide and covers both the entire traditional palette of classical and romantic violin music, as well as music of the 30th and XNUMXst centuries, including works by such masters as Henze, Berg and Stockhausen. It also promotes the works of living Russian and Eastern European composers and presents many new compositions; some of them are dedicated to Kremer. He has collaborated with composers as diverse as Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli, Sofia Gubaidulina, Valentin Silvestrov, Luigi Nono, Aribert Reimann, Peteris Vasks, John Adams and Astor Piazzolla, presenting their music to the public with respect for tradition and at the same time time with the feeling of today. It would be fair to say that there is no other soloist of the same level and the highest world status in the world who has done so much for contemporary composers over the past XNUMX years.

In 1981, Gidon Kremer founded the Chamber Music Festival in Lockenhaus (Austria), which has been held every summer since then. In 1997, he organized the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra, with the aim of promoting the development of young musicians from the three Baltic countries – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Since then, Gidon Kremer has been actively touring with the orchestra, regularly performing in the world’s best concert halls and at the most prestigious festivals. From 2002-2006 he was artistic director of the new festival les muséiques in Basel (Switzerland).

Gidon Kremer is extremely fruitful in the field of sound recording. He has recorded over 100 albums, many of which have received prestigious international prizes and awards for outstanding interpretations, including Grand prix du Disque, Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, Ernst-von-Siemens Musikpreis, Bundesverdienstkreuz, Premio dell’ Accademia Musicale Chigiana. He is the winner of the Independent Russian Triumph Prize (2000), the UNESCO Prize (2001), the Saeculum-Glashütte Original-Musikfestspielpreis (2007, Dresden) and the Rolf Schock Prize (2008, Stockholm).

In February 2002, he and the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra he created received a Grammy Award for the album After Mozart in the nomination “Best Performance in a Small Ensemble” in the genre of classical music. The same recording won the ECHO award in Germany in autumn 2002. He has also recorded numerous discs with the orchestra for Teldec, Nonesuch and ECM.

Recently released was The Berlin Recital with Martha Argerich, featuring works by Schumann and Bartok (EMI Classics) and an album of all Mozart’s violin concertos, a live recording made with the Kremerata Baltica Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival in 2006 (Nonesuch). The same label released his latest CD De Profundis in September 2010.

Gidon Kremer playing the violin by Nicola Amati (1641). He is the author of three books published in Germany, which reflect his creative life.