Ilya Gringolts

Ilya Gringolts (Russian: Илья́ Алекса́ндрович Гринго́льц, romanized: Il′já Aleksándrovič Gringól′c) born 2 July 1982 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) is a violinist and educator.

Gringolts studied violin in St. Petersburg with Tatiana Liberova and Jeanna Metallidi. He then attended the Juilliard School, and studied violin with Itzhak Perlman for 3 years.^[1] From 2001 to 2003, Gringolts was a member of the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists programme.

Gringolts is currently on the music faculty of the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste. In addition to the modern violin, he has a continued commitment to period-instrument performance. He founded the Gringolts Quartet in 2008 and plays first violin in the quartet. Gringolts plays the "ex-Prové" Stradivarius violin, loaned to him by a private donor.

Gringolts has made commercial recordings for such labels as Onyx^[2] and Deutsche Grammophon.^[3][4]

Gringolts is married to the Armenian violinist Anahit Kurtikyan. The couple has three daughters.^[1] His sister, Olga, is married to the violinist, Maxim Vengerov.

Awards and prizes

• 1992: All-Russian Junior Competition, Second Prize
• 1994: International Youth Competition in St. Petersburg, First Prize
• 1995: Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists, Junior Division, Sixth Prize
• 1997: Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition, Junior Division, Laureate
• 1998: Paganini Competition in Genoa, Italy: First Prize
• 2001-2003: BBC New Generation Artist
• 2006: Gramophone Award for Chamber Music, recording of chamber music of the Sergei Taneyev Piano Quintet with Vadim Repin, Nobuko Imai, Lynn Harrell, and Mikhail Pletnev.