Gidon Kremer

Artist Website

“This iconoclastic soloist has always had a fierce independent streak in his music-making, his choice of repertoire, his stage presence, and the musical company he keeps.”

– Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe

Gidon Kremer was born into a musical family in Riga, Latvia, in 1947 and took up the violin at the age of four. Aged eighteen, he began his studies with David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory and then launched a dazzling solo career by winning first prize in both the Paganini and Tchaikovsky International Competitions while still in his early twenties.

“This iconoclastic soloist has always had a fierce independent streak in his music-making, his choice of repertoire, his stage presence, and the musical company he keeps.”

– Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe

Kremer’s repertoire is unusually broad, encompassing all the standard classical and romantic works, but he has also been a tireless champion of modern and contemporary music, in particular from Russia and Eastern Europe. Among the long and diverse list of composers with whom he has been associated (often as dedicatee of new works) are Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli, Sofia Gubaidulina, Valentin Silvestrov, Luigi Nono, Aribert Reimann, Peteris Vasks, John Adams and Victor Kissine.

Gidon Kremer’s relationship with ECM dates back to the now legendary album “Tabula Rasa” (1984), which introduced many to the music of Arvo Pärt. A host of other acclaimed recordings have followed since, including Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin, which Kremer has referred to as “the Himalayas” of the violin literature, the violinist’s Old Testament.

In 1981 Kremer founded the intimate Lockenhaus chamber music festival that took place every summer in Austria for 30 years, highlights of which are available in a 5-CD ECM box set. In 1997, he set up the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra to foster outstanding young musicians from the three Baltic States, a collaboration which has also yielded ECM recordings, including music by Schubert, Mahler, Shostakovich, and Weinberg.

Gidon Kremer received many international awards in recognition of his exceptional interpretative insights, among others the Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis, the Unesco Prize (2001) and the Praemium Imperiale in 2016.

His commitment to the „discovery“ of the composer Mieczysław Weinberg, has contributed to a wider recognition of his œuvre and is featured on ECM recordings with orchestral and chamber music as well as works for solo violin.

Gidon Kremer plays an instrument made by Nicola Amati in 1641.