David Garrett

David Garrett was born David Bongarz in Aachen, Germany on the 4th of September 1980. His father is a lawyer and his mother a classical ballerina. He has an older brother Alexander, who was at that time taking violin lessons. In an attempt to imitate his big brother David snatched up his violin when he was four years old and taught himself how to play the instrument on his own. Soon his parents discovered their younger son's talent and made sure he got proper tutors. He made his first appearance with the Hamburg Philharmonics at the age of ten. At the age of thirteen he was the youngest artist to sign an exclusive contract with the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. In 1999, at the prime of his young career he decided to put everything on hold and move to New York in order to study musicology and composition at the prestigious Julliard School. To pay for his studies he worked as a bartender, a janitor and a library clerk before he was discovered by a modeling agency. At Julliard he was taught by the likes of Itzhak Perlmann and Eric Ewazen. In 2003 he won the Composition Competition of Julliard School with a fugue composed in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach. After completing his studies he started a new career as a crossover violinist attempting to breach the often wide gap between the new generations of young people and classic music. In 2006 the record company Decca released his first crossover album "Free" (also known under the title "Virtuoso" by the record company DEAG), which contained classics such as the "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov and Paganini's "Caprice n° 24", as well as a remake of Metallica's "Nothing else matters". He was awarded with an ECHO Classic 2008 in the category "Borderless Classic" The second album "Encore" followed at the heel in October 2008, The success of the second album even outdid that of the first. In the USA the album remained number one in the classical and classical crossover charts for months. With the album "Classic Romance", released in November 2009, David returned to his classic roots. The album gained overwhelming popularity, winning Garrett the ECHO Classic 2010 in the category "Bestseller of the Year". His next album "Rock Symphonies", released in July 2010 topped everything seen up to that point. Addressing his young audience the album contained remakes of rock and metal anthems from bands like Nirvana, Guns n' Roses, Metallica and U2 combined with titles by Vivaldi and Beethoven. This brought him two ECHO awards in 20011. The DVD "David Garrett: Rock Symphonies - Open Air Live" was awarded in the category "Best Domestic DVD Production" and as "Best Artist" in the category "Rock/Pop Domestic". After his successful Rock Symphonies Tour in 2011, David once more returned to the realm of classical music. He recorded of the album "Legacy"(by the Decca Record Company), which was first released in Germany on November 2011. The album consists of the Beethoven Violin-Concerto and various works by Fritz Kreisler. As soon as it was released "Legacy" reached rank 6 on the overall-charts in Germany, thus making it the highest-ranking instrumental classical album in German chart history. In January 2012 it reached gold-status.