Yuri Zolotarev

If Mieczysław Weinberg had lived for another decade or so after his death in 1996, he would have seen his status change from poorly known outlier to general acceptance as one of the major twentieth-century composers. His violin works have likewise been recognised as major additions to the repertoire. Since Yuri Kalnits and Michael Csányi-Wills began what will be a four-volume survey of Mieczysław Weinberg’s music for violin and piano, other musicians have discovered and recorded many of these masterworks, but on its completion this cycle will still be the first to record all of Weinberg’s violin works.

Yuri Bashmet is the founder and jury chair of Russia´s only International Viola Competition (Moscow) as well as president of the International Lionel Tertis Viola Competition in the United Kingdom. He is the recipient of various awards and regalia from Russia as well as from other nations. In 1995, he received the Sonnings Musikfond Prize, one of the most prestigious in the world, which was conferred in Copenhagen. Previous recipients of this award include Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Arthur Rubinstein, Dmitry Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich, Svyatoslav Rikhter and Gidon Kremer.