One can hardly play the violin more expressively, more uncompromisingly than Gringolts. (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Ilya Gringolts wins over audiences with his highly virtuosic playing and sophisticated interpretations and is always seeking out new musical challenges. As a sought-after soloist, Ilya Gringolts devotes himself to the great orchestral repertoire as well as to contemporary and rare works; he is also interested in historical performance practices. His concert programmes include virtuosic early repertoire by Leclair and Locatelli as well as Paganini’s solo and orchestral works. Many composers have written new works for him; most recently Chaya Czernowin, Lotta Wennäkoski, Mirela Ivičević, Augusta Read Thomas, Beat Furrer, Bernhard Lang, and Michael Jarrell.
This season, he will be performing with, amongst others, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, and the Belgian National Orchestra; his schedule also includes tours and performances with the Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est, the Korean National Symphony Orchestra and the orchestras of Tasmania, Auckland and Queensland. With Orchestra La Scintilla Zürich he continues his collaboration in the field of historical performance practice, this time under the baton of Adam Fischer. Solo recitals and chamber music concerts take him to Beethovenfest Bonn, the Tsinandali Festival (Georgia), the Ascona Festival, the Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall in London, as well as to the Aldeburgh Festival. In Naples and Genova, he performs the complete cycle of Beethoven’s violin sonatas together with Peter Laul.
Ilya Gringolts has performed with such renowned orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Mahler Chamber Orchestra, as well as with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Budapest Festival Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony, Singapore Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan. From his violin, he regularly leads projects with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Camerata Bern, and Ensemble Resonanz.
His extensive discography, featuring highly acclaimed and multi-award-winning recordings for labels including Deutsche Grammophon, BIS, and Hyperion, also includes a critically acclaimed recording of Paganini’s 24 Caprices for solo violin (2013), a complete survey of Stravinsky’s works for violin (2018), and Locatelli’s Il labirinto armonico (2021). Last season, the release of J.S. Bach’s sonatas for violin and harpsichord recorded with Francesco Corti marked the start of his new collaboration with Outhere Music/Arcana; the recording received distinctions such as Diapason d’Or, Scherzo Excepcional, and Muse d’argent from Muse Baroque magazine. In October 2026 a recording of the fantasia and three sonatas for violin and piano by Franz Schubert follows, realized on period instruments together with pianist Anton Gerzenberg.
As first violinist of the Gringolts Quartet, Ilya Gringolts has enjoyed great success at the Salzburg Festival, Lucerne Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and Teatro La Fenice in Venice. A highly esteemed chamber musician, he regularly collaborates with artists such as Nicolas Altstaedt, Lawrence Power, Alexander Lonquich, Peter Laul, Aleksandar Madžar, and Christian Poltéra.
After studying violin and composition with Tatiani Liberova and Zhanneta Metallidi in St. Petersburg, Ilya Gringolts attended the Juilliard School of Music, where he studied with Itzhak Perlman. He won the International Violin Competition Premio Paganini (1998) and is still the youngest winner in the competition’s history; he was also named a BBC New Generation Artist at the outset of his career. In addition to his professor position at the Zurich University of the Arts, Ilya Gringolts was appointed to the renowned Accademia Chigiana in Siena in 2021. He is also artistic advisor of the Mizmorim Festival in Switzerland. Ilya Gringolts plays a violin by Guarneri “del Gesù” (1743).
2026/27 season
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