Violinist Gil Shaham is internationally recognized by audiences and critics alike as one of today’s most virtuosic and engaging classical artists. He is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with celebrated orchestras and conductors, as well as for recital and ensemble appearances on the great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.
Gil Shaham’s 2009-2010 season will be marked by several exciting projects. His “Violin Concertos of the 1930s” project highlights masterpieces by influential composers in that decade and features 35 performances of works by Barber, Berg, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Walton. Highly anticipated performances include appearances with Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Tilson-Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra, Robertson and the New York Philharmonic and Jansons with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In December, Shaham and the New York-based Sejong will perform and record works by Haydn and Mendelssohn in a tour of Asia that includes performances in Korea, China, and Taiwan. In April, he will join the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for a tour of the west coast performing Mozart, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.
In addition to his many orchestral engagements Mr. Shaham regularly makes recital appearances. This season Mr. Shaham will give a series of all-Bach recitals beginning with an appearance at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario and then again in October and March during European tours that include performances in London, Istanbul, Milan, Prague and Cologne among others. Mr. Shaham has the good fortune to enjoy musical collaboration with his family as well, including his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, his sister pianist Orli Shaham and his brother-in-law, conductor David Robertson. In spring 2007 his dream of bringing together friends and colleagues for chamber music came to fruition in a tour of Brahms programs, culminating in a series of three concerts at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. An encore of this project took place during the spring of 2009.
Among his more than two dozen concerto and solo CD’s, are a number of best sellers, appearing on record charts in the US and abroad. These recordings have earned prestigious awards including multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’or and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Mr. Shaham’s recent recordings have been produced for his own label “Canary Classics” – The Butterfly Lovers / Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Singapore Symphony, The Faure Album with Akira Eguchi, the Prokofiev Album with Orli Shaham, “Mozart in Paris”, a recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A major with Yefim Bronfman and cellist Truls Mørk, a recording of Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and David Zinman released in November 2008, and most recently a recording of works by Spanish composer Pablo Sarasate with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León and Alejandro Posada to be released in the fall of 2009.
Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel where at the age of 7 he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music and granted annual scholarships by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, while studying with Haim Taub in Jerusalem, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic. That same year he began his studies with Dorothy DeLay and Jens Ellerman at Aspen. In 1982, after taking first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition, he became a scholarship student at Juilliard, where he has worked with Ms. DeLay and Hyo Kang. He has also studied at Columbia University.
Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990 and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Award. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius. He lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony and their two children.
