Jean-Jacques Kantorow

Jean -Jacques Kantorow ( born October 3, 1945 in Cannes ) is a French violinist and conductor of Russian origin.

Kantorow had first lessons at the Conservatory of Nice and was thirteen years old to the Conservatoire de Paris, where he has already received the first prize in violin in the following year. He won in the 1960s, several violin competitions, including the Carl Flesch Competition in London, the Paganini Competition in Genoa and the International Violin Competition in Geneva.

In more than 130 recordings Kontorow played a standard repertoire for the violin. Glenn Gould called him the most original violinist he had ever heard. He has performed with artists such as Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim, Paul Tortelier, Kristian Zimerman, János Starker, Maria João Pires, Gidon Kremer, Edith Wiens and Renée Fleming and founded in 1969 with the pianist Jacques Rouvier and the Celiisten Philippe Muller, a piano trio.

Kantorows conducting career began in the 1970s. After the Orchestre de Paris and then passed 1977-78 to 1984 the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, in 1985 he was chief conductor of the Auvergne Chamber Orchestra and in 1993 the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris. As a guest conductor he worked, inter alia, with the BBC Chamber Orchestra, the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra. As a violin teacher, he worked at the conservatories of Strasbourg and Rotterdam and at the Conservatoire de Paris.