David Garrett
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Full Biography
"I am delighted to have watched David Garrett`s development from the age of eleven. He is surely going to have a resounding presence on the music world of the 21st century."
(Zubin Mehta)

"He is an exceptional Talent"
(Daniel Barenboim)

"He is a wonderful violinist with excellent technique and natural musicianship. He will always perform with artistry"
(Itzhak Perlman)

"I consider David Garrett one of the finest young violinists in the world".
( Ida Haendel )

"He is one of the most gifted fourteen year olds I have ever heard, and I have to remind myself that he is indeed only fourteen!"
(Isaac Stern - 1995)


Since summer 2007, David Garrett has again been playing with overwhelming success in international concert halls and is celebrating a comeback beyond comparison, resulting from his crossover album “Virtuoso” and his versatile concert activities with an extensive repertoire.

Developing young people’s enthusiasm for classical concerts is close to David Garrett’s heart. As a result, he decided in spite of considerable opposition to record a crossover album with various arrangements and his own compositions of pieces and melodies that he has been involved with time and again in his life up to this point. The repertoire goes from opera arias, film music, up to “Nothing else matters” by Metallica. In this context he likes to give regular interviews in all media that arouse interest in predominantly young audiences.

The overwhelming success of his CD release and sold out concerts (both cross-over concerts and purely classical ones) speak for themselves. In Germany, Virtuoso is amongst the most successful CD projects of 2008 and, amongst others, was awarded the ECHO Classic in the category “Classical music without borders”. In Germany as well as in Great Britain and South East Asia, the album was in the top 20 of the pop charts. In October, the second crossover album by David Garrett will be published under the title “Encore”.

After giving many sold out “Virtuoso” concerts, he will be heard in November 2008 and May 2009 with a pure duo programme including works by Beethoven, Grieg and Sarasate in the Berlin Philharmonie, Hamburg Laeiszhalle, Munich Herkulessaal, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Cologne Philharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper as well as in the Vienna Konzerthaus. His next crossover concerts in the Munich Olympiahall, the Berlin Tempodrom, the Frankfurt Jahrhunderthalle as well as the Cologne Arena will be in January 2009.

In between, he has been invited to various concerts worldwide, e.g. in May 2007 he was in Israel where he played with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra 11 concerts (Mozart’s G Major Conzert, Vivaldi’s Vier Jahreszeiten and Paganini’s Concert No. 2 “La Campanella”). The conductor was George Pehlivenian, who also immediately invited him to his orchestra in Ljubljana and Villach in October 2008 to play Paganini’s “La Campanella”.

Further engagements with orchestras including the Orchestre National de Lyon under the direction of Jun Märkl or the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner lead David Garrett to Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Luxemburg, Croatia, Israel, the US, Brasil and Japan. In February 2008, David Garrett went on tour in the US with the Israel Chamber Orchestra. With Dmitrij Kitajenko, David Garrett performed the Violin Concerto by Elgar in April 2008. In July 2008, David Garrett gave a duo recital at the renowned Verbier Festival. In the coming 2008/09 season, David Garrett will give guest performances at the Brabants Orkest (Brahm’s Violin Concert), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra (Bruch’s Violin Concert), Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz (Beethoven’s Violin Concert), Philharmonisches Orchester Kiel (Bartók’s Violin Concert No. 1), Moscow State Symphony Orchestra (Beethoven’s Violin Concert) and at the Hong Kong Sinfonietta as well as the chamber orchestras of Zurich and Prague.

Another of David Garret’s great loves is chamber music. His partners at the piano include Itamar Golan, Daniel Gortler and Milana Chernyavska, with whom he gives guest performances at famous festivals such as the BBC Proms, the Bemus Festival in Belgrade or the Verbier Festival. In summer 2009, there are trio concerts with Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Gautier Capuçon are planned for at, amongst others, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele.

In 2009, David Garrett will be artistic consultant of the Saar Music Festival.

David Garrett was born in Aachen as son of German-American parents and received his first violin lessons at the age of four. He had his first public concert at the age of 10 with the Hamburger Philharmoniker under the direction of Gerd Albrecht. In 1992, he began to work with the great Polish violinist Ida Haendel, who significantly influenced his artistic development.

Afterwards, an unprecedented “prodigy career” begins, leading David Garrett to all major cities in Europe, America and Japan to perform with the most distinguished orchestras and conductors, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Paris, the Mozarteum Orchester, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Staatskapelle Dresden and many others. Partners at the music stand included Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Herbert Blomstedt, Charles Dutoit, Eliahu Inbal und Mikhail Pletnev, to name a few. In 1996, David Garrett performed the Elgar Violin Concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the conduction of Sir Yehudi Menuhin in the Wiener Musikverein.

At the age of 18, David Garrett moved to New York, where he became one of the first students of Itzhak Perlman at the Juilliard School. Working with Itzhak Perlman, David Garrett found a way to his own musical language and gained new confidence and the willingness to lead a life for music. Stylistically flexible, he developed a versatile repertoire from Bach and Mozart, including the great classical violin concerts of Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky and the rarely played violin concerts by Conus, Schumann and Dvorák up to the virtuosic pieces by Waxman, Ravel and Saint-Saëns, commending him worldwide as an exceptional soloist with infatuatingly pure sounds and youthful spirit.

In addition, David Garrett has held the Guinnes world record since May 2008 as the fastest violinist of the world. He played the “Hummelflug” by Rimskij-Korsakow in 66 seconds, which means incredible 13 notes per second.

In 1994 at the age of 13, David Garrett signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon as their youngest artist. The following recordings have been released:
Mozart Violin Concerts with Claudio Abbado (1995); the 24 Paganini Caprices (1997), the Violin Concerts by Tchaikovsky and Conus with the Russian National Orchestra under Mikhail Pletnev (2001), “Pure Classics” as Compilation of his first recordings (2002).
These recordings can be downloaded from www.deutschegrammophon.com. Since 2007, David has been the exclusive artist of DECCA. Both crossover albums “Virtuoso” and “Encore” were released in 2007 and 2008 respectively, and in autumn 2009, there are plans to release a CD including the Mendelssohn Violin Concert and works arranged by David Garrett himself.

2008/2009

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