| Germany
The Lithuanian cellist and conductor David Geringas belongs to the musical elite of today and is one of the most influential musicians at the moment. An unusually broad repertoire from the early Baroque to the contemporary pieces tells about the flexibility and curiosity of the artist. His intellectual rigor, his stylistic versatility, his melodic feeling, and the sensuousness of his tone have brought him to be praised all over the world. The Rostropovich student and a gold-medal winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition 1970, can now be delighted with a career that has spanned decades. David Geringas has performed world-wide with some of the leading orchestras, and the most renowned conductors of our time.
His discography, which now reaches 120 albums, includes many that have been honored with important prizes, including the Grand Prix du Disque for his recording of the 12 cello concertos of Luigi Boccherini, the Diapason d’Or d’Année for the chamber music of Henri Dutilleux, and the Prize of the Year from the Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for his recording of the cello concertos of Hans Pfitzner, as well as for his recording of the works for cello and piano by Alfred Schnittke. David Geringas has been awarded with the “Echo Klassik” twice. In 2013, he received the Award for the Best Chamber Music Recording of the XX–XXI Centuries (Braunfels/Strauss, Profil Edition Günter Hänssler), and in 2014 – for the best chamber music recording of the XIX century (“Pohádka”, C2 Hamburg/ES DUR).
Prominent in his career as an artist there is this frequency of outstanding CDs releases. Between 2008 and 2011, eight new CDs were released: two of them include world-premieres (“David’s Song” and “Discorsi”, Profil Edition Günter Hänssler), and the rest – works for piano and cello by Sergei Rachmaninoff (Hänssler Classics), pieces by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (Profil Edition Günter Hänssler) and Frederic Chopin (Sony Music Entertainment), as well as the complete works for the cello and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven (Hänssler Classic), recorded with the pianist Ian Fountain – an album that has been awarded the “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone. The CD of the cycle “Bach Plus”, that includes all six J. S. Bach suites for violoncello, introduced with the fragments of various contemporary composers, was released in October 2011, and was praised by the critics.
Well-known contemporary composers, such as Sofia Gubaidulina, Ned Rorem, Pēteris Vasks and Erkki-Sven Tüür, have dedicated cello concertos specially to him. He has played the premieres of many works of the Russian and Lithuanian avantgarde in the West. In 2002, he gave the world premiere of the “Concerto in DO” by Anatolijus Šenderovas, a piece dedicated to him, which won the European Composers' Prize in Berlin. In 2012, David Geringas performed three world premieres: Concerto “In Memoriam” by Arvydas Malcys in Kaunas, the Concerto for Cello by Silvia Colasanti in Milan, and the Cello Concerto by Alexander Raskatov in Amsterdam.
As a conductor, David Geringas appears regularly in Germany and abroad, and frequently in a dual role both as the cellist and conductor. Besides the invitations from Western and Eastern European music centers, such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Auditoriun Parco della musica Roma, Wiener Musikverein, Tonhalle in Zürich, Berliner Philharmonie, among the others, he has also received numerous invitations from Asia and the USA. From 2005 to 2008, he was a chief guest conductor at the Kyushu Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 2007 he had his debut with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and the China Philharmonic Orchestra. In February 2009, he made his debut as a conductor with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 2015 with the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra in St. Petersburg. His opera conducting debut followed in 2010, with Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin performance in Klaipėda. And in 2015, David Geringas gave a successful debut as a musical director and conductor of the ballet “Eglė žalčių karalienė“ by Eduardas Balsys in Vilnius.
David Geringas has taught a world-famous cello class for decades, from which come such cello stars as Gustav Rivinius, Jens Peter Maintz, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Monika Leskovar, Tatiana Vassiljeva, Jing Zhao, Johannes Moser, Maximilian Hornung and Sol Gabetta. He has taught at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena since 2005. In 2023, he was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA), and in the same years published his autobiography “Don't Tell Anyone. Memories of a Cellist“ (“Sag das niemandem. Lebenserinnerungen eines Cellisten“) together with Jan Brachmann. For his promotion of Lithuanian music and its composers, David Geringas has won the highest awards in his homeland. He was awarded the Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse in Germany for his achievements as a musician and cultural ambassador for the country on the international musical scene.
David Geringas is a honorary professor at the Moscow P. Tchaikovsky Conservatory and at the Rimski-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, also at the Central Conservatory in Beijing. He has as well received an honorary doctorate from the Lithuanian Music and Theater Academy. In the winter semester 2014/2015, David Geringas was a visiting professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, in 2016 David Geringas was celebrating his anniversary with concerts in Siena, the Rheingau Festival, Enescu Festival, Usedom Festival, Berlin Philharmonic, Vilnius, Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 2018, he was offered with the chair position of the jury in prestigious competitions, such as Schoenfeld International Cello Competition in Harbin, George Enescu Cello Competition in Bucharest, and was appointment as Meritorious Artist of the International Union of Musical Arts of Russia. Professor David Geringas teaches exclusively at the Blackmore International Music Academy in Berlin.
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