David Garrett has been back, playing in international concert halls, for two years now. After his several year “hiatus”, recommendations by Zubin Mehta prompted invitations leading him to Milan (February 2007, Brahm’s Violin Concert) and to Israel in May 2007, where he played 11 concerts with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (the Mozart Concert in G Major, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the Paganini Concert No. 2 “La Campanella”). The conductor was George Pehlivenian, who immediately invited him to play with his orchestra in Ljubljana in October 2008.
Further orchestra engagements with the Orchestre National de Lyon under the direction of Jun Märkl and 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, Brazil and Japan. In February 2008, David Garrett will tour the US with the Israel Chamber Orchestra. With Sir Neville Marriner, he will once again perform the Violin Concert by Elgar in April 2008.
The latest reviews about him wrote:
Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung : August 2007
... The violinist David Garret born in Aachen and now living in New York, presented himself as both virtuosic and vivacious. He played Vivaldi’s “Summer” with forceful and coarse violin bow strokes, and Pablo Sarasate’s tricky “Zigeunerweisen” with admirable nonchalance. He showed his lyrical side in the Violin Romance in F Major by Ludwig van Beethoven and the Metallica classic “Nothing else matters”, which, played by Garrett, sounded akin to Puccini...
Donau Kurier :March 2007
„But the sonatas he interpreted before, David Garrett played even more overwhelmingly. Why? Because the young star violinist, who is working on his comeback after his four-year-study with Itzhak Perlman, is able to draw an incredibly light-sounding, extremely fast-vibrating sound from his Stradivari. Garrett played the Thuner Sonata by Johannes Brahms with stunningly beautiful sounds and with relaxed virtuosity. What one perceived, was an extremely handsome artist producing beautiful sounds. But: There certainly was no violin-playing dressman on stage, but rather a great violinist who during his studies has sometimes earned his living presenting men’s fashion.
Garrett’s violin play is especially made for the Brahms Sonata. He opts for the expressiveness of melodies, the tender and sentimental gesture and thus develops a smoothly flowing, somehow serene interpretation. Even the highlights of movements he play are somewhat restrained, there are never moments of uncomely forcefulness.“
Frankfurter Neue Presse : September 2006
"A fully successful start, whose positive impression was not at all impaired by the interpretation of Dvorák’s Violin Concert A Minor. David Garrett ... let himself be inspired by the archaic power of the composition, gave his intense sound the sweetness necessary, but did not show off the high virtuosity of the piece. He rather developed the flowing melos of Dvorák’s language of sound in a very natural manner. He played the Adagio in a wonderfully dark timbre, and in the final Allegro giocoso he was so gripped by his enthusiasm, that it resulted in a playful exchange with the orchestra – and in a Paganini encore, requested vehemently by an enraptured audience."
Público, Portugal: July 2006
"The rest of the programme was real Schumann: a demanding violin concerto, to which a highly praised soloist, the violinist David Garrett, brought agility and virtuosity - with a slow movement written by a composer at his highest level, where we heard the soloist and orchestra at their best (sonority, expression and poetry, phrase after phrase) ...."
Another of David Garret’s great loves is chamber music. His partners at the piano include Itamar Golan, Daniel Gortler and Milana Chernyavska. During the 2007/08 season, recital tours led him to various countries, including Germany, Korea and Japan.
Developing young people’s enthusiasm for classical concerts is close to David Garrett’s heart. To do that, he likes to give regular interviews about his concerts, which together with pictures arouse interest among the young audience. David Garrett is very photogenic and he benefits from his experience as a model, which he gained during his years in New York.
His latest release of “free” at DECCA equally pursues this aim of arousing young people’s interest in classical music. The release contains arrangements and compositions of his own of pieces and melodies that have accompanied him in his life so far. The CD is in the pop charts in South East Asia.
Together with his band, consisting of keyboard, guitar and drums, he gives concerts that include classical sonatas in the first part (accompanied by a concert grand piano) and arrangements and compositions, as well as Nothing Else Matters by Metallica in the second part.
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 gains 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 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).
David Garrett plays a Stradivari violin from 1710 as well as a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini from 1772.
September 2007