David Garrett
Picture by Christoph Köstlin
David Garrett
Having picked up his first violin at age 4, David Garrett studied with Zahkar Bron and Ida Haendel to name a few.
His extraordinary, multifaceted talent was spotted early on: as a child prodigy, David Garrett made his stage debut at the age of 10 and became the youngest-ever artist to sign with the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon at the age of 13. As a child he worked with conductors legends like Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado and Yehudi Menuhin. At the age of merely 15 he recorded all 24 of Paganini’s Caprices – doubtlessly some of the most challenging pieces ever written for violin. Yehudi Menuhin has even praised him as “the greatest violinist of his generation”.
At this very point of his career, he opted for honing and broadening his skills, enrolling at the world-famous Juilliard School in New York: he become a student of Itzhak Perlman.
After his graduation and continuing to this day David Garrett has been working with the most exceptional conductors in the classical field such as Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach, Riccardo Chailly, and Andrés Orozco-Estrada.
In addition, he plays with the most distinguished orchestras such as the Wiener Symphoniker, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Filharmonica della Scala, RAI Turin, Accademia di Santa Cecillia, Russian National Orchestra, and Israel Philharmonic.
Within his now 10 years of international crossover career David Garrett outdid himself over and over again. A Paganini among pop stars and a Jimi Hendrix among violinists, David Garrett is the “Devil’s Violinist” of our age, an international superstar who blurs the lines between Mozart and Metallica. With his programmes “Explosive” and “Unlimited” David Garrett is touring worldwide.
Praised for pioneering the modern crossover trend as well as his exceptionally virtuous playing, David Garrett is equally at home at performing the most intricate classical compositions with the world’s leading conductors and orchestras as well as the most crowd-pleasing stadium rock hits. He combines rock star charisma with the kind of virtuosity innate only to the best instrumentalists of our time. Admired by all of his fans around the world, David Garrett has sold millions of tickets so far and earned 25 gold and 17 platinum awards in places as diverse as Hong Kong, Germany, Mexico, Taiwan, Brazil, Singapore, and many others.
In 2013 David Garrett celebrates his debut as an actor in the role of Niccolò Paganini in the movie "The Devil's Violinist".
David Garrett plays the Stradivari "Ex Busch" (1716) and the "Pugnani" Guarneri del Gesù (1736).