 Ilya Kaler
The only violinist ever
to win Gold Medals at all three of the world's most prestigious
competitions, the Tchaikovsky, the Sibelius and the Paganini competitions,
Ilya Kaler is already being compared to the likes of Heifetz and
Perlman. Kaler's recordings of the Paganini Caprices have been deemed
by American Record Guide to be, "in a class by themselves"
combining "the perfection, passion, and phrase-sculpting of
Michael Rabin with the energy, excitement, and immediacy of Jascha
Heifetz." His recordings of both Paganini Concertos and Caprices,
the Schumann Sonatas, both Shostakovich Concertos, the Dvorak Concerto
and the Glazunov Concerto have met with equally superlative acclaim.
The Washington Post unabashedly lauds him as, "a consummate
musician, Kaler is in total control at all times, with a peerless
mastery of his violin."
Born into a family of
musicians in Moscow, Ilya Kaler showed enormous talent from an early
age. At the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory he studied
under Zinaida Gilels and Yury Yankelevich. He continued his studies
with Leonid Kogan and Viktor Tretyakov at the Moscow Conservatory,
where he earned both master's and doctorate degrees, and graduated
with the Gold Medal Award. He also studied privately with Abram
Shtern in the Soviet Union and the United States.
Mr. Kaler has earned
rave reviews for solo appearances with distinguished orchestras
throughout the world. He has performed with the Leningrad, Moscow,
and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestras, the Montreal Symphony, the
Danish and Berlin Radio Orchestras, and the Moscow and Zurich Chamber
Orchestras, among others. His solo recitals have taken him throughout
Europe, Scandinavia, East Asia, and the former Soviet Union.
In recent years, Mr.
Kaler has performed with the Detroit, Baltimore, and Seattle Symphony
Orchestras, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in the
United States, and has toured Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Singapore,
Korea, Taiwan, England, Venezuela and Japan. In Japan, he played
with the New Japan Philharmonic, the Century Symphony Orchestra
and the Hiroshima Symphony. Also an active chamber musician, Mr.
Kaler has performed for several summers at the Newport Music Festival
in Newport, Rhode Island. He was Professor of Violin at the Eastman
School of Music, and for five years served as Concertmaster of the
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Currently, Mr. Kaler is a Professor
of Music at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington,
Indiana. Last season he made two new recordings for the Ongaku label
and two new recordings for the Naxos label. This season he will
record the Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time with Jonathan Cohler
on Ongaku.
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