“I was at school. There was a knock on the door and a message: ‘Gil, can you come down to the principal’s office?’ That can’t be a good thing…am I in trouble? And London Symphony Orchestra representatives are there, looking for a violinist ready with the repertoire to stand in for Itzhak Perlman. I had to choose whether to go back to class or to board the Concorde with them and fly to London immediately. Thousands of metres above the ground, champagne on board, and an unprecedented reception! It took me just a few seconds to decide. They were overjoyed, and we took off,” says the now world-famous violinist Gil Shaham, recalling the watershed moment of his musical career. He was 18 years old, and although he had already achieved many successes by then—he made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic at age ten and a year later won the Claremont Competition in Israel, where he was staying with his parents at the time—he was still a “mere” student at New York’s Juilliard School.
Then the offer to stand in for Itzhak Perlman arrived. Thanks to Shaham’s great success at that concert with the London Symphony Orchestra led by Michael Tilson Thomas, invitations started pouring in for concerts and recordings; suddenly, his name was appearing in all the most important musical media. To this day, he thrills audiences at the world’s most famous concert halls with perfect technique supported by masterful musicianship and very amiable stage presence, as Svatava Barančicová writes for the OperaPlus portal: “His breathtaking virtuosity knows no bounds, yet on stage he makes a most delicate, modest impression. He is always smiling at the public and the orchestra players, and he connects with the musicians, following their playing and enjoying their passages just as he does his own. He does not tower over the orchestra in the pose of a virtuoso; he just puts his fingers on the fingerboard and fully demonstrates his exceptional skills: shocking speed, smooth execution of technically difficult figures that lie awkwardly for the violin, and upward leaps that slash through thickets of notes like the cold, precise flash of a steel blade. His double stops are perfectly in tune at any tempo and in every register. And he smiles disarmingly while doing all of this.”
The review is of a concert at last year’s Dvořák Prague Festival, when Gil Shaham appeared with the Israel Philharmonic. He has been a frequent guest in Prague, however: the Dvořák Prague Festival welcomed him back in 2016 with Antonio Pappano, then three years later he performed brilliantly with the Prague Philharmonia in Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, which he is playing this time in New York with the Czech Philharmonic. “I love Dvořák!” Shaham declares, adding that he listened to the composer’s symphonies already in his youth.
Shaham’s repertoire is large, of course. A few years ago he released a very successful recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete solo sonatas and partitas, and besides traditional works of the classical and romantic eras, he also focuses on playing violin concertos of the 20th century. That is the direction his recording activities have taken in recent years, and one CD from the series “1930s Violin Concertos” was nominated for a Grammy. However, he already has a Grammy to his credit for the album American Scenes, which he recorded at age 27 with André Previn, and he has received many other important musical awards such as the Grand Prix du Disque, the Diapason d’Or, and the designation as Editor’s Choice from the magazine Gramophone.
At the Rudolfinum and around the world, audiences can see Shaham playing his rare “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius. He collaborates regularly with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. However, he enjoys being at home in New York, where he has been living for many years with his wife, the violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.
