Shlomo Mintz

Shlomo Mintz (Hebrew: שלמה מינץ) (born 30 October 1957) is an Israeli violin virtuoso, violist and conductor. He regularly appears with orchestras and conductors on the international scene and is heard in recitals and chamber music concerts around the world.

Shlomo Mintz was born in Moscow. In 1959, when he was two, his family immigrated to Israel, where he studied with Ilona Feher, one of the last representatives of the Central European violin school. Feher introduced Shlomo Mintz to Isaac Stern, who became his mentor. He was also a student of Dorothy DeLay in New York.

Mintz began his career at age 11 as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Soon afterwards, he was called on a week's notice by Zubin Mehta to play Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 6, with the orchestra when Itzhak Perlman fell ill. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of sixteen with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under the auspices of Isaac Stern and the American-Israel Cultural Foundation, and subsequently studied with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. At the age of 20, he made an extensive tour through Europe with famous conductors such as Carlo Maria Giulini, Antal Dorati and Eugene Ormandy. He also signed, still in his early twenties, a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon.

In 1997 he played Paganini's famous "Il Cannone", a violin made by Italian luthier Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù in 1742, during a special concert in Maastricht in the Netherlands with the Limburg Symphony Orchestra and conductor Yoel Levi, which was arranged on the initiative of a Dutch television network (TROS) and aired on TV in December 1997. In 2012, he celebrated his 50th year on the concert stage.

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