Gidon Kremer
»...in recognition of his services to the New Music. In his work as a performer and a festival programmer, he has made an exemplary contribution towards bringing the music of our era to a wide public.«
In the past three decades, Gidon Kremer, born in Riga in 1947, has established himself as a remarkable personality on the music scene. Besides his virtuosity as a violinist, he is primarily famed as a committed patron of young musicians and a communicator of New Music. In 1997 he founded the Kremerata Baltica, a chamber orchestra comprising without exception young, talented musicians from the Baltic states. Together with this orchestra, he gives regular concerts at world-renowned music festivals. In his creative oeuvre, as an authentic representative of European culture, Gidon Kremer has successfully synthesised the salient features of the Jewish, Latvian, Russian and German cultures.