The Israeli violist Amihai Grosz was born in 1979 in Jerusalem. He began his musical training on the violin at the age of five before switching to the viola when he was eleven. Initially a pupil of David Chen at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, he later continued his studies with Tabea Zimmermann at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin and completed them with Haim Taub at the Keshet Eilon Music Center in Tel Aviv. In 1996, when he was only seventeen, Grosz joined with three fellow students to found the Jerusalem Quartet, of which he was a member until 2010 and with which he garnered many awards, including the Borletti Buitoni Trust Award and the ECHO Klassik. During this time he was also active as a soloist and concertized with such ensembles as the Jerusalem Symphony, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and the Staatskapelle Berlin. In 2010 Grosz decided to accept the position of first principal violist of the Berlin Philharmonic. Along with his work in this orchestra, he is additionally deeply committed to chamber music and has performed with such colleagues as the pianists Yefim Bronfman, Oleg Maisenberg, and Mitsuko Uchida; the violinists Janine Jansen and Julian Rachlin; the cellist David Geringas; and the flutist Emmanuel Pahud. Concerts with these musicians and others have led to engagements at the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, the BBC Proms, the Verbier Festival, and the Bahnhof Rolandseck, as well as with the chamber music festivals held in Utrecht and West Cork. Amihai Grosz plays a Gaspar da Salo viola from 1570, which has been made available to him as a lifelong loan by a private collector.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 18 September 2008 with the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival Ensemble in works by Robert Schumann.
August 2015