One can hardly play the violin more expressively, more uncompromisingly than Gringolts. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Harald Eggebrecht)
The Russian violinist Ilya Gringolts convinces with highly virtuosic playing and subtle interpretations, always seeking new musical challenges. As a sought-after soloist, he dedicates himself not only to the large orchestral repertoire but also to rarely performed and contemporary works; in addition, Ilya Gringolts is interested in historical performance practice. Thus virtuoso early repertoire by Locatelli or Leclair as well as Paganini's solo works and orchestral concertos adorn his concert programs. New works by Peter Maxwell Davies, Christophe Bertrand, Bernhard Lang, Beat Furrer and Michael Jarrell were launched by him. In 2020 Ilya Gringolts and Ilan Volkov founded the I&I Foundation for the promotion of contemporary music, which awards commissions to young composers.
Ilya Gringolts started the 2022/23 season at the Musikfest Berlin together with Nicolas Altstaedt and Lawrence Power on the occasion of Wolfgang Rihm's 70th birthday. Other invitations take him to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Andrey Boreyko, the Helsinki Philharmonic and Radio Filharmonisch Orkest under Hannu Lintu, the Oslo Philharmonic under Klaus Mäkelä and the National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan. He leads the Camerata Bern from the violin at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and reunites with the Australian Chamber Orchestra for an extensive tour of Australia.
Ilya Gringolts has performed with renowned orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Singa¬pore Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Recent highlights include projects with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Symphonieorchester, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire. Play-lead projects have recently brought him together with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, the Camerata Bern and the Ensemble Resonanz.
For his Diapason d'Or and Gramophone Editor's Choice Award-winning recording of Locatelli's Il labirinto armonico (2021), Ilya Gringolts led the Finnish Baroque Orchestra from the podium. This was followed in the same year by the solo CD Ciaccona with works by Bach, Pauset, Gerhard and Holliger, which also received the Gramophone Editor's Choice Award. His extensive discography of highly acclaimed CD productions for Deutsche Grammophon, BIS and Hyperion, among others, also includes the critically acclaimed recording of Paganini's 24 Caprices for solo violin and the recording of the complete violin works of Stravinsky (2018), recorded with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia under Dima Slobodeniouk and awarded the Diapason d'Or.
As primarius of the Gringolts Quartet, he has enjoyed success at the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Philharmonie Luxembourg, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, among others. A highly regarded chamber musician, Ilya Gringolts regularly collaborates with artists such as Nicolas Altstaedt, Alexander Lonquich, James Boyd, Itamar Golan, Peter Laul, Aleksandar Madzar, Christian Poltera, Lawrence Power and Jörg Widmann.
After first studying violin and composition in St. Petersburg, Ilya Gringolts continued his studies with Itzhak Perlman at the Juilliard School. He is still the youngest winner of the international violin competition Premio Paganini (1998) and was a BBC New Generation Artist of the first hour. In addition to being a professor at the Zurich University of the Arts, Ilya Gringolts has been appointed to the prestigious Accademia Chigiana in Siena from 2021. He plays a violin by Stradivari (1718 "ex-Prové").