Since summer 2007, David Garrett has again been playing with overwhelming success in international concert halls and is celebrating a comeback beyond comparison, resulting from his crossover album Virtuoso as well as Encore and his versatile concert activities with an extensive repertoire.

A matter near to David Garrett’s heart is to develop young people’s enthusiasm for classical music. As a result, he decided in spite of considerable opposition to record the crossover album Virtuoso with various arrangements and his own compositions of pieces. In Germany, Virtuoso is amongst the most successful CD projects of the year 2008 and was awarded among others with the ECHO Classic in the category “Classical music without borders”. In Germany as well as in Great Britain and South East Asia, the album was in the top 20 of the pop charts. In October 2008 his second crossover album “Encore” was published. Since September 2009 David Garrett’s success spread also to the US where his album went straight to the No. 1 of the Billboard Charts. The US-tours in autumn 2009 and March/April 2010 were very successful.

His new album, Classical Romance, which appeared in November 2009 went straight into the top ten. Here David Garrett together with the “Deutsche Sinfonieorchester Berlin” under the baton of Andrew Litton among others recorded the Violin Concerto of Mendelssohn and own arranged compositions. In January 2010 a successful tour with the Staatskapelle Weimar under George Pehlivanian took place with this program.

In the past season he gave various concerts in Europe with a pure duo program including works by Beethoven, Grieg and Sarasate in the Philharmonie Berlin, Hamburg Laeiszhalle, Munich Herkulessaal, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Cologne Philharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper as well as in the Vienna Konzerthaus. His next crossover concerts in the Munich Olympiahall, the Berlin O2world, the Frankfurt Festhalle as well as the Cologne Lanxess Arena will be in November 2010.

In May 2011 David Garrett will play Tchaikovsky violin concerto together with the Russian National Philharmonic and Vladimir Spivakov. Fabio Luisi is inviting David Garrett to Vienna in June 2011 with Wiener Symphoniker and Jukka-Pekka Saraste to the WDR Sinfonieorchester in January 2012.

Another of David Garret’s great loves is chamber music. His partners at the piano include Julien Quentin, Daniel Gortler and Milana Chernyavska, with whom he gives guest performances at famous festivals such as the BBC Proms, the Bemus Festival in Belgrade or the Verbier Festival. In summer 2009 trio concerts with Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Gautier Capuçon took place.

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.

In addition, David Garrett has held the Guinness world record since May 2008 as the fastest violinist of the world. He played the “Hummelflug” by Rimskij-Korsakow in 66 seconds, which means incredible 13 notes per second.
Since autumn 2008 David Garrett is ambassador to UNESCO.

On the occasion of the 60 years of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009 he was invited by the chancellor Angela Merkel to attend the celebration. In June 2009 he performed at the summer party of the Federal President.

plays a Stradivari *Ex A. Busch* from 1716.

Homepage: www.david-garrett.com

April 2010