Ilya Kaler


Ilya Kaler is a Russian-born violinist. Born and educated in Moscow, Kaler is the only person to have won Gold Medals at all three of the Tchaikovsky Competition">Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky">Tchaikovsky Competition ; the Sibelius ; and the Paganini.

Education

Born into a family of an orchestral musician, Ilya Kaler showed musical talent from an early age. At the Central Music School for Especially Gifted Children of the Moscow Conservatory he studied under Zinaida Gilels. He continued his studies with Leonid Kogan and Viktor Tretiakov at the Conservatory, where he earned both master's and doctorate degrees, and graduated with the Gold Medal Award. He also studied privately with Abram Shtern in Kyiv and Los Angeles.

Career

From 1996 to 2001 he was concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. He has performed as soloist with the Leningrad, Moscow, and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestras, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Danish and Berlin Radio Orchestras, and the Moscow and Zurich Chamber Orchestras, the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Detroit, Baltimore, Lansing and Seattle Symphony Orchestras, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in the United States, and has toured Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, England, Venezuela and Japan. In Japan, he played with the New [Japan Philharmonic], the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra and the Hiroshima Symphony. Also an active chamber musician, Kaler has performed for several summers at the Newport Music Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. His solo recitals have taken him throughout Europe, Scandinavia, East Asia, and the former Soviet Union.
Kaler was formerly Professor of Violin at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, DePaul University School of Music in Chicago, Illinois. As of 2018 he currently Professor of Violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has adjudicated several violin competitions around the world including the International Tchaikovsky Competition.
Since 2007, Kaler has performed with cellist Amit Peled and pianist Alon Goldstein as the Tempest Trio both in the concert hall and in the recording studio.

Recordings

Kaler has made many recordings. The recordings released in the last ten years include works by Eugène Ysaÿe, Bach, Brahms, Schumann, Shostakovich, Glazunov, Szymanowski, Dvorak, Paganini, Tchaikovsky and Messiaen. His solo CD Ilya Kaler, violin was nominated for the NAIRD Indie Award in 1995 in the solo classical category.

Discography