David Geringas’ musical interests lead him into various paths. Besides conducting, the most important of them is cello, which the artist has mastered perfectly, becoming a virtuoso.
David Geringas has been a pioneer in introducing contemporary Russian music to the West by composers such as Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov, Alfred Schnittke and Viktor Suslin, many of whom have dedicated works to him. For his special commitment to contemporary music, Mr. Geringas received the Kultur aktuell Prize in 1992 from the Cultural Association of Schleswig-Holstein. In 1994 he premiered the cello concerto by Gubaidulina, championing the new concerto in 12 countries including Japan, Russia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Belgium; his CD of the Gubaidulina Cello Concerto, with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Jukka-Pekka Saraste, was issued by the Collegno label. Last May he continued his pioneering efforts with the world premiere of the Cello Concerto by the Estonian composer Lepo Sumera.
Mr. Geringas was born in 1946 in Lithuania, and in 1963 entered the Moscow Conservatory of Music where he studied with Mstislav Rostropovich. He won the Gold Medal in the 1970 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and five years later moved to Germany to begin his international career under the sponsorship of the Herbert von Karajan Foundation.
In 2000 he took over a professorship for violoncello at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik 'Hanns Eisler'. He also heads various master-classes all over the world for the up-and-coming musicians. His students are winners of prizes and awards of international competitions as the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition, the Paris Rostropovitch Competition and the Munich ARD Competition.
He has performed as a soloist with conductors such as Gerd Albrecht, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Semyon Bychkov, Myung-Whun Chung, Charles Dutoit, Kirill Kondrashin, Ferdinand Leitner, Sir Simon Rattle, Mstislav Rostropovich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Klaus Tennstedt and Michael Tilson Thomas. As a soloist David Geringas has performed with many major international orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo) and the London Philharmonic. In addition to his solo career, Mr. Geringas enjoys a career in chamber music. He has appeared in concerts and festivals at the Berlin and Vienna Festwochen, Lockenhaus, Ludwigsburg, and at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
David Geringas is often being accompanied on the piano by his wife Tatjana Geringas as well as the English pianist Ian Fountain whom he is giving concerts with under the title "Beethoven plus" at the chamber music hall of the Philharmonie Berlin and the Musikhalle Hamburg in the 2004/2005 season.
In the framework of a Haydn chamber music evening of the Gewandhaus Leipzig David Geringas will perform on the seldom played barytone together with the Gewandhausquartett. He will also give a concert with the Artemis Quartett on the occasion of the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg.
To an ever growing extent David Geringas has been engaged as conductor. Among other orchestras he conducted the Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin, the Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, the Kammerphilharmonie of the MDR Leipzig, the Jenaer Philharmonie, the Hamburger Symphoniker, the Baden-Badener Philharmonie, the chamber orchestra of the Wiener Symphoniker (Concert-Verein), the Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR, the Kremerata Baltica as well as orchestras in Latvia, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico and Costa Rica. In summer 2005 will give performances as conductor and soloist with a Piazzolla/Ginastera program in the framework of several festivals among others at the Rheingau Musik Festival.
For his first CD recording as conductor he received the 'Choc de la Musique' of the music review 'Le Monde de la Musique'.
David Geringas is Permanent Guest Conductor of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra Vilnius.
