Virtuoso violinist

Vadim Gluzman is at the stage of his career where he can choose his repertoire and his musical partners.

By MAXIM REIDER
Violinist 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Violinist 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Outstanding violinist Vadim Gluzman returns to Israel to perform Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Jerusalem Symphony under the baton of Dmitry Sitkovetsky on July 14 at the Jerusalem Theater.
Born in Ukraine in 1973, he studied with the legendary Zachar Bron before immigrating in Israel in 1990.
Being noticed by Isaac Stern, he also studied in the United States under Arkady Fomin and at Juilliard under the late Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki. Today, he makes Chicago his home base, where he serves as a violin professor at Roosevelt University. He is also a visiting professor at the Jerusalem Music and Dance Academy and at Salzburg’s Mozarteum.
“My Chicago apartment is mostly the place where I change my suitcases, rehearse new pieces and meet my family [his pianist wife Angela Yoffe and their little daughter Orli] if they are not in Israel,” says Gluzman in a phone interview from his home.
With his career on the rise Gluzman, who plays on ex-Auer Stradivari from 1690, received on an extended loan from the Chicago Stradivari Society, performs nearly 90 concerts a season, appearing throughout the world both as a soloist with leading orchestras and in recitals with his wife.
“Among the latest performances I would like to mention are a concert with the unique Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, appearances with the San Francisco and Toronto symphonies, a sold-out recital with Angela at Wigmor Hall in London and concerts with the Lucerne Symphony under Jonathan Nott. In Lucerne I performed and recorded In Tempus Praesens, an amazing Second Violin Concerto by Sofia Gubaidulina, among others.”
Speaking about his musical life, Gluzman says that at this stage of his career he is able to choose his repertoire and music partners more freely, to realize his dreams, such as a new North Shore Chamber Music Festival, which took place this June in a small Presbyterian church in Chicago. “That’s it: I play the music I like. I always tried to, but it didn’t always happen. But I pay for this with more sleepless nights, more days far from my loved ones because I spend much more time on the road or just inventing and preparing new programs.”
Gluzman’s repertoire is varied.
“Every season I have two or three new concerts to offer.” He also plays a lot of contemporary music, with composers dedicating their pieces for them, such as Lera Auerbach, “and I enjoy cooperation with living composers, such as Sofia Gubaidulina or a wonderful American composer Michael Daugherty, Arvo Part and others. I adamantly believe that if we stop playing contemporary music, we will not only deprive our art of a chance to develop, but we also can miss another Shostakovich concerto.
You can’t commission a masterpieces – but just keep trying until history decides that this or that piece will remain in the repertoire for years to come.”
Vadim Gluzman plays Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 on July 14 at the Jerusalem Theater. The program also features Glinka’s Overture from Ruslan and Ludmila and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. For tickets: (02) 560-5755.