Nikolaj Znaider - Violin

Nikolaj Znaider, celebrated internationally as one of today’s foremost violinists, works regularly with the world’s leading orchestras, and is increasingly popular as a conductor. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra recently appointed him principal guest conductor, and he tours with the ensemble early in the season.

Mr. Znaider’s engagement calendar includes an international tour with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra; concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra, with which he performs the Brahms Concerto, and with the London Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev for Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto. In Dresden with Sir Colin Davis and the Dresden Staatskapelle, he’ll perform and record Edward Elgar’s Violin Concerto, for release by BMG Red Seal/Sony Masterworks for the Concerto’s centennial next year.

Znaider conducts the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra during a two-week residency, and takes the SPCO on tour in Scandinavia. He gives Mendelssohn bicentennial concerts in Denmark and Germany, and plays the Brahms concerto in Los Angeles under Marin Alsop and on tour with the Bergen Philharmonic, among numerous other engagements.

Born in Denmark to Polish-Israeli parents, Znaider studied with the eminent Russian pedagogue Boris Kushnir, and draws on his unique background in his music-making. Znaider has been heralded in the Strad magazine as “extraordinarily intelligent, soulful and impassioned, yet without a hint of indulgence,” and the Chicago Tribune wrote “Perhaps not since the young Gidon Kremer burst upon the violin world in 1970 has a violinist caused quite the stir of Nikolaj Znaider.”

Znaider is a keen chamber musician and recitalist, and has shared the stage with such outstanding colleagues as Leif Ove Andsnes, Daniel Barenboim, Yuri Bashmet, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Lang Lang, and Pinchas Zukerman. He has worked with the world’s most acclaimed conductors, including Mr. Barenboim, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Yuri Temirkanov, and Christian Thielemann, and with orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra.

An exclusive Sony/BMG/Masterworks recording artist, Nikolaj Znaider most recently recorded the Brahms and Korngold concerti with the Vienna Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev for release this season. His critically-acclaimed discography includes the Beethoven and Mendelssohn Concerti with the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, Brahms’s complete chamber works for violin and piano with Yefim Bronfman, the three Mozart Piano Trios with Daniel Barenboim and Kyrill Zlotnikov, and Prokofiev and Glazunov Concerti with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons. Gramophone stated of the last of these: “Znaider’s confident, abundantly characterful account of the Prokofiev is, on balance, the finest I’ve heard since Vadim Rapin’s. ... His playing is a model of scrupulous observation and profound musicality.”

Znaider, who is as passionate about music education as about making music, is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Nordic Music Academy, an annual summer school whose mission is to create conscious and focused musical development based on quality and commitment.

Nikolaj Znaider plays a Guarneri “del Gesù” violin once owned by Fritz Kreisler. It is on extended loan to the violinist from the Royal Danish Theater through the generosity of the Velux Foundations and the Knud Højgaard Foundation.