The Belgian violinist Michael Guttman has been praised by the New York Times for his “incredible tonal richness and the beauty of his sound” and described as “the Chagall of violinists” by the Jerusalem Post. At the age of ten, he was the youngest student ever admitted to the Royal Conservatoire of Music in Brussels. At the age of sixteen, he made his stage debut in a duo with Jean Pierre Rampal. His meeting with Isaac Stern led to his admission to the Juilliard School in New York, where he continued his studies with Dorothy Delay, the Juilliard Quartet, Felix Galimir and, later, with the Russian violinist Boris Goldstein.
His London debut was followed by concerts at the Barbican Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he recorded concertos. His career took off internationally and Michael Guttman performed at Lincoln Centre in New York, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, in Asia and in Argentina, where he met Astor Piazzolla. Highly regarded as a chamber musician, he was invited to numerous festivals: by Martha Argerich in Lugano, by Yuri Bashmet on the Elbe, by Natalya Gutman in Kreuth, by Boris Berezovsky in Moscow and Beauvais, by Cho-Liang Ling in Hong Kong, and by Salvatore Accardo in Vicenza. After serving as assistant to the American composer Lukas Foss, he collaborated as a conductor with musicians such as Peter Serkin, Stanley Drucker and Joshua Bell, and conducted the Brussels Chamber Orchestra. His memorable encounter with Piazzolla led him to collaborate with the French bandoneonist Olivier Manoury and to programme a variety of world music alongside the traditional repertoire.
Michael Guttman attaches great importance to supporting young people and works with the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Brussels and the Juilliard School in New York. He received the Fuga Prize for his work with contemporary Belgian composers. Following several festivals in Bruges, Toronto and the Hamptons, Michael Guttman founded and now directs the Pietrasanta in Concerto festival in Tuscany, which has established itself as a leading musical event over the past 20 years. Michael Guttman is also music director of Crans-Montana Classics, Odessa Classica in Ukraine, the POLIN festival in Warsaw and the PATMOS chamber music festival.
He plays a 1735 Guarneri del Gesù that once belonged to the Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Battista Viotti.
(Photo: Ives Dimant)
