Gil Shaham

Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time, thanks to his flawless technique, inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit. He performs throughout the world with leading orchestras, ensembles and conductors and regularly gives recitals and appears at the world’s most prestigious concert halls and festivals.
Highlights of recent years include an acclaimed recording and various performances of Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin. Over the coming seasons, in addition to championing these works, he will join his long time duo partner Akira Eguchi in recital throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
Gil Shaham appears regularly with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston, San Francisco and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the Israel, Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics and the Orchestre de Paris, as well as his multi-year residencies with the orchestras of Montréal, Stuttgart and Singapore.
He has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, which have earned multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, the Diapason d’Or and editor’s choice in Gramophone. Many of his recordings appear on Canary Classics, which he founded in 2004, including 1930s Violin Concertos, Virtuoso Violin Works, Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Hebrew Melodies and The Butterfly Lovers. His most recent recording, 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2, includes Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto and Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto and was nominated for a Grammy.
Gil Shaham was born in Illinois in 1971. He then moved with his parents to Israel, where he began studying the violin with Samuel Bernstein at the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of seven, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981 he made his debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic and won first prize in the Claremont Competition the following year. He then became a scholarship student at Juilliard and also studied at Columbia University.
Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990 and received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize in 2008. In 2012 he was named instrumentalist of the year by Musical America.
He plays the 1699 ‘Countess Polignac’ Stradivarius.