Gints Berzins, piano
Gints Berzins was born in Riga, Latvia in 1966. He began piano playing at the age of four and entered the Jazeps Medins Music School in Riga at the age of five. At eleven he won the first prize at the International Competition for Young Pianists held in Vilnius, Lithuania and the following year he won the first prize at the all-Latvia Competition of Young Pianists. Gints continued his studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and graduated in 1992 in three disciplines: Piano-Soloist, Chamber Musician and Piano Teacher. He also took an extra course in Orchestra conducting.
Gints has, participated in numerous festivals, amongst them the Festival of Flanders
(Belgium), Piano Masters Festival (Florida, USA), 20th Century music festival and Bach festivals in Riga, Latvia and Germany. In 1994 he was nominated “Musician of the Year” of Latvia.
His solo appearances in the U.S. include three recitals at Carnegie Hall in New York,
Chicago, Boston, Miami, Toronto (Canada) and others. He has had many solo
appearances in Europe (Germany, Belgium, France, England, Russia, Lithuania and
Estonia) and Australia.
For the last 10 years Gints has been residing in New York and has extended his
talents to the opera world. He has done extensive work as pianist for the numerous
opera houses in the U.S. including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera,
Dicapo Opera, Amato Opera. In 2007 Gints made his opera conducting debut
with Mozart`s Cosi fan tutte for the Holders Season festival.
He has been working with the number of leading opera singers including Rene Pape,
Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Anna Netrebko and many others.
For a number of years, Gints has been involved in Mannes College of music opera
productions in collaboration with maestro Joseph Colaneri. In 2010 Gints has performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival with the festival orchestra and the conductor Louis Langree.
Gints Berzins has recorded three CDs presenting music of Chopin, Tchaikovsky and
Mussorgsky. Currently Gints is working on the six CD set of the Complete Piano Sonatas of Mozart.
