* En anglais uniquement
Russian violinist
Ilya Kaler has been compared to masters such as
Itzhak Perlman and
Jascha Heifetz. He has the distinction of being the only violinist to win gold medals in three of the most prestigious international competitions: the International
Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (1986), the
Sibelius Competition in Helsinki (1985), and the
Paganini Competition in Genoa (1981). He has had a distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and educator.
Kaler was born into a musical family in Moscow in 1963, and attended the Central Music School for Especially Gifted Children. He received his master's degree and his doctorate from the Moscow State Conservatory, where his teachers included
Leonid Kogan and
Viktor Tretyakov. He has established a significant international career, performing with some of the world's great orchestras, including the
St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the
Moscow Philharmonic, the Leningrad Philharmonic, the
Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the
Dresden Philharmonic, the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the
Detroit Symphony, the
Seattle Symphony, and the
Baltimore Symphony. His experience in chamber music includes participation in the Newport and Chautauqua Music Festivals, and other musicians with whom he has collaborated include
Janos Starker,
Steven Doane,
Emanuel Ax,
Yuri Bashmet, and Myron Bloom.
Kaler has taught at the Eastman Conservatory of Music, Indiana University School of Music (where he was Distinguished Professor of Music), and DePaul University. He has served as concertmaster of the
Rochester Philharmonic and as guest concertmaster of the
Philadelphia Orchestra, the
San Francisco Symphony, and the Aspen Festival Orchestra. His recordings include a broad range of concertos, solo works, and chamber music by composers as diverse as
Paganini,
Bach,
Schumann,
Brahms,
Tchaikovsky,
Dvorák, Glazunov, Szymanowski,
Shostakovich, and
Messiaen.