‘I am attached to music that speaks to you and does not just manipulate your sophistication. The point is not only to say something unheard of before but to say it in a language of emotion. Music can be a mirror of ourselves. It offers us the opportunity for reflection’.

One of the world’s most compelling musicians, and a tireless exponent of the challenging and the unexpected, Gidon Kremer was born in Riga, Latvia in 1947. His father was a holocaust survivor. Growing up in a totalitarian state was not easy for such a free spirit. In 1965 he entered the Moscow Conservatory to study with David Oistrakh, winning in 1969 the Paganini and in 1970 the International Tchaikovsky competions.

His collaborations with composers reveal his searching and restless character – Adams, Berio, Glass, Gubaidulina, Kancheli, Nono, Pärt, Piazzolla, Reimann, Silvestrov, Stockhausen and Vasks have enriched the repertoire hugely. His associations with such forward-looking artists as Argerich, Eschenbach, Harnoncourt and Maisky, to name but a few, have resulted in many great recordings.

He is a classicist, modernist, romantic virtuoso, Latvian voice, Soviet product, Universalist, evocateur of the dances and rhythms of the dispossessed from Eastern Europe to latin America. An artist forever seeking parallels and cross-references.