Violin & Viola virtuoso and Conductor
Shlomo Mintz is considered by colleagues, audiences, and critics one of the foremost violinists of our time, esteemed for his impeccable musicianship, stylistic versatility, and commanding technique. He has long been acclaimed as a celebrated guest artist with many of the great orchestras and conductors on the international stage and continues to enchant audiences with his playing.
Awarded with many prestigious international prizes including the Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana, the Diapason D’Or, the Grand Prix du Disque, the Gramophone Award, the Edison Award and the Cremona Music Award, in 2006 he received an Honorary Degree from the Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba (Israel) and in 2022 was named Honorary Fellow of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance (Israel).
Born in Moscow and immigrated when he was 2 to Israel, he studied with Ilona Feher who introduced Mintz to Isaac Stern becoming his mentor. He was also a student of Dorothy DeLay in New York.
On stage from an early age and along his career, he has collaborated with such a famous artists like Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado, Carlo Maria Giulini, Riccardo Muti, Yuri Temirkanov, Ida Haendel and Ivry Gitlis, among many others, and played with the best orchestras in the world as the Berlin, Wien, Concertgebouw, Chicago, Los Angeles, the NHK Symphony (Japan), Philadelphia and New York Philharmonic
At 18 years old, Mintz launched a parallel career as a conductor, and has since led acclaimed orchestras worldwide including the Royal Philharmonic (United Kingdom), the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Melbourne Symphony and the Russian National Orchestras, Filarmonica di Bologna, the Israel Philharmonic and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
He was one of the founders of the Keshet Eilon International Violin Mastercourse in Israel, an advanced-level summer program for young talented violinists from all around the world in Kibbutz Eilon, Israel, and served as a patron there for eighteen years (1992-2010) and is one of the main actors/co-founder of the "Violins of Hope" project: forty-five violins whose owners lost their lives in ghettos and concentration camps during World War II, restored and displayed internationally. The Violins of Hope were presented in a special event in Jerusalem for the sixtieth-anniversary celebration of the State of Israel.
In 2019, with the label DECCA, he released the Ysaÿe Six Violin Sonatas Op. 27 and another CD with the Mendelssohn Concertos and to celebrate Mintz’s 60th birthday, Deutsche Grammophon has re-released his recordings as a 13-CD edition that includes the legendary recordings of the Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Sibelius, Lalo, and Vieuxtemps violin concertos with great orchestras and conductors. In the last years, Mintz added composing to his talents as violinist, violist, and conductor: his Anthem to an Unknown Nation was premiered in June 2017 at the Vigadó Grand Hall, Budapest, and his Sonatina for violin and piano premiered in Domodossola and Istanbul in October 2017.
Regularly invited by the most prestigious international competitions, Mintz has served as a jury member of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels and the International Henryk Wieniawski Competition in Poznań, Poland. He was also invited to be jury president of the Munetsugu Angel Violin Competition in Japan, for several years. From 2002 to 2011, he was jury president of the Sion Valais-International Violin Competition in Switzerland and from 2012 to 2018, the Artistic Director of Crans-Montana Classics, a high-level violin Mastercourse and Festival, also in Switzerland.
Currently, he is the Mentor and President of the Jury of the International Violin Competition Buenos Aires in Argentina, President of Jury and Artistic Director of Tucuman (Argentina) Festival and National Violin Competition, as well as the president of the Ilona Fehér Budapest Violin Competition in Hungary.
He is steadily receiving invitations to conduct and play with orchestras and festivals in Europe, North and South America and Asia and giving masterclasses world-wide.
PRESS QUOTES
"The sound Shlomo Mintz channeled in Beethoven's Violin Concerto, was beautiful, precise and polished and couldn’t be faulted from the deepest to the highest of notes. The soloing was noble, never gratuitously showy and always alert to the orchestra. Had the concert hall’s roof caved in, there was such gravitas in Mintz’ brilliant delivery, the magnificence of his singing violin would have continued.."
Limelight Magazine (Australia)
“A wonderful sound. The violin of Shlomo Mintz sounded yesterday as rarely happens in the auditorium Prince Felipe de Oviedo. On top of that Mintz simultaneously conducted two of the three works in the program… Resounding success ... What else to say to the awesome encores "Obsession" Sonata No. 2 Ysayë or the excellent cadence in Vieuxtemps Concerto”
Javier Neira, Oviedo
"Mintz was technically brilliant, showing off his exquisite left hand technique... After an avalanche of Violin's Most Scary Techniques, ... delivered with flawless intonation, over extreme terrain, I knew that I had witnessed one of the most memorable performances of my life.
Andy Wilding, Cape Town
"Equipped with only his violin and Paganini’s Caprice No.24, Mintz blew us away with a magnanimous onslaught of violin technique... By the time interval began we were left breathless, wondering how we could ever listen to a violin in the same way again."
Mustapha Hendricks & Lutz Manzelmann, Cape Town
“We have heard the great violinist Shlomo Mintz last week, as the conductor and the soloist of the Cameristi della Scala performing Bach violin concertos nr. 1 and nr. 2… Besides years of experience of Mintz as a musician, his deep respect to the composer also captured our attention. Especially the sentences that he assembled on the heavy parts, was braided with clear and beautiful tones...”
Evin Ilyasoglu, Cumhuriyet, Istanbul
"The most ravishingly beautiful playing we mortals can hope to hear”
Milwaukee Sentinel, USA
“Shlomo Mintz, a fine guest at the first of three Ontario Philharmonic concerts at Koerner Hall … The evening started with a flourish as star violinist Shlomo Mintz marked his 50th anniversary on stage with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. It was a vigorous, sharp-edged performance that highlighted the virtuosic side of this concert hall warhorse”
Toronto Star, Toronto
“Mintz’s musical thinking is instinctive. His tone, aged for 50 years on the concert stage, is rich and gritty. He bows with a firm hand, strokes bold as charcoal…This is a heart-on-sleeve performance, fierce and emotional, not especially gentle, more energetic, masculine, athletic.”
OpusOneReview, Stanley Fefferman, Toronto
“Those fortunate persons who attended the concert had the singular occasion to listen one of the greatest violinists of these days.”
La Nacion, Buenos Aires
