ARTIST PROFILE

Ilya Gringolts and Christopher Guzman

BIOGRAPHY

Ilya Gringolts

Winner of the 1998 International Violin Competition "Premio Paganini", 16-year-old Ilya Gringolts was also awarded two special prizes for the youngest ever competitor to be placed in the final and the best interpreter of Paganini's Caprices. Ilya studied violin and composition at the St. Petersburg Special Music School with Tatiana Liberova and Jeanna Metallidi and at the Juilliard School in New York with Itzhak Perlman and the late Dorothy Delay. He was also one of twelve young artists selected by the BBC for their New Generation Artists Scheme.

In recent and forthcoming seasons Gringolts has been invited to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim, UBS Verbier Orchestra/Kurt Masur and Mstislav Rostropovich, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Israel Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta, with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Yuri Temirkanov, Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin, at the Proms with the BBC Philharmonic and Vassily Sinaisky, Rotterdam Philharmonic with Vladimir Jurowski, London Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, BBC Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

In recital Ilya broadcasts regularly on the BBC and has appeared at such prestigious venues as the Louvre Paris, Palais des Beaux Arts Brussels and the Wigmore Hall. He is also a regular guest at many international festivals such as La Jolla and Verbier Festival, where he has collaborated with artists such as Bashmet, Levine, Shaham, Kirshbaum, Ax and Andsnes. He has also appeared at the Ravinia Rising Stars Festival, Bergen Festival and the City of London Festival.

Ilya Gringolts has made three recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and his third recording, of Prokofiev 1 and Sibelius, was released in July 2004 to great critical acclaim. His previous recordings for DGG - of solo Bach and of the Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich No.1 Concertos - received outstanding reviews. His previous recordings for BIS Records have been greeted with a number of extraordinary accolades.

Ilya Gringolts plays the ex-Kiesewetter Stradivari, Cremona, c.1723 which is on extended loan from Clement Arrison through the generous efforts of the Stradivari Society of Chicago. The Stradivari Society is a unique organisation that supports the very highest level of string playing by assisting Patrons who own the most precious antique Italian instruments and choose to make them available to artists of exception talent and ability.

Christopher Guzman

Christopher Guzman, of San Antonio, Texas, has won top prizes in numerous competitions, given solo and chamber music recitals throughout America, Europe and Asia and performed with orchestras throughout the United States. Mr. Guzman made his orchestral debut at the age of thirteen and subsequently performed Prokofiev's Concerto No. 3 in C Major with orchestras in Texas, North Carolina, and New Mexico. He has also performed with the EOS Orchestra of New York City, the Fort Worth Symphony and extensively with the San Antonio Symphony. At The Juilliard School, he is the only current student to have performed with the Juilliard Orchestra three times: in Avery Fisher Hall under the direction of Andrew Litton, in Alice Tully Hall under Jeffrey Milarsky, and in Spoleto, Italy, under Jonathan Sheffer. In addition to these performances, Mr. Guzman is also a member of the school's New Juilliard Ensemble; in November 2002, he performed John Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra with the New Juilliard Ensemble at the Festival Whynote! in Dijon, France.

Mr. Guzman is an avid chamber musician, and has performed chamber music throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Recently he has performed with other musicians in the Juilliard Theater, Columbia University's Miller Theater, Alice Tully Hall, Leipzig's Gewandhaus, as part of the Artists Ascending Concert Series of Memphis, Tennessee, the Festival dei Due Mondi of Spoleto, Italy, the Vancouver Recital Series, and San Francisco Performances. He has toured Japan twice with acclaimed violinist Ilya Gringolts, including a debut in Suntory Hall, Tokyo. In October of 2002 he was featured with Gringolts on NPR's "Saint Paul Sunday," performing a recital of Bartok, Dvorak and Ravel. Mr. Guzman is currently studying with Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald at The Juilliard School.