The Concerto Budapest series entitled Concerto Open invites some of the most innovative personalities of the age to Hungary. Guests of the series are not only creatives, performers and composers, but also important thinkers and diverse artists, all of whom are striving to answer the significant questions of our time. Renowned violinist Gidon Kremer is a returning guest of the series. His previous concert at the Palace of Arts was in the Spring of 2013 when he performed with András Keller and his orchestra.
Born in Riga, Kremer began playing the violin at age four under the guidance of his father and grandfather. He won his first international award in 1967 at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, before going on to win many more international accolades through the years. Gidon Kremer founded the Kremerata Musica chamber music festival in Austria in 1981, and created the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra in 1996, which consists of the most talented young musicians from the Baltic countries. The world-renowned violinist has an extraordinarily broad repertoire extending from Vivaldi and Bach as far as contemporary composers, several of whom have dedicated works to him. At this concert he performs a work by the Polish Mieczysław Weinberg, who passed away in 1996, using a Guarneri del Gesù violin from 1730.