Yonatan Grinberg

Biography

International violinist Yonatan Grinberg creates meaningful and moving concert experiences for audiences across the globe. His artistic integrity, passionate delivery and unabashed idealism coupled with vast musical knowledge and devotion to world class performance make Grinberg a favorite of both frequent and first-time concert goers.

Committed to musical performance in different forms, Grinberg has performed as soloist, concertmaster and chamber musician in halls around the world including Concertgebouw Hall in Amsterdam, the Israeli Opera Hall in Tel Aviv, and the Philharmonic Hall in Zagreb. He has collaborated with artists such as Alexander Pavlovsky (Jerusalem Quartet), Violaine Melancon and Dr. David Schrader and on various projects with composers such as Aviya Kopelman, Dr. Wissam Gibran, and Jonathan Leshnoff. Recently Grinberg recorded a Piano Quintet by Leshnoff with members of the Baltimore Symphony to be published on Naxos in 2017. Mr. Grinberg’s performances have been aired on Israeli TV and Radio, as well as Slovenian Radio, and some of his notable chamber performances include a guest performance at a faculty concert in Towson University, the Jerusalem Music Center and a tour of chamber concerts in Holland as part of the Zeist Music Days festival. As a concertmaster Grinberg has performed with the Perlman Music Program, the Jerusalem Academy Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, and has led no-conductor ensembles in concerts in Hebrew University and Tel Aviv with soloists such as Vadim Gluzman, Dr. Ron Regev and Dr. Asaf Zohar. 

For eight years Grinberg toured and performed with the Arab-Jewish Youth Orchestra both as soloist and concertmaster in Israel and Europe. The experience of seeing first hand how the music acted as a healing power in areas of harsh conflict, between both musicians and audiences, has affected him deeply as a musician and as human being, devoting himself to using music to mend hearts and make the world a better place.

Since 2015 Grinberg has been the founder and musical director of the Chamber Encounters concert series in the Gordon Center for Performing Arts in the Greater Baltimore area, which has been hailed in its first year by Baltimore Style Magazine as Baltimore’s 3rd most exciting musicians crossing all genres. These concerts are artfully constructed by diverse programming, round theater seating and interaction between the performers and the audience to create a lively and dynamic experience for different audiences.

Mr. Grinberg’s devotion to using music to improve lives goes far beyond the concert hall. As a teacher, Yonatan has taught in El- Sistema and other community engagement programs in Chicago and Baltimore, and directed a summer orchestra program for the People’s Music School in Chicago, which served over a hundred inner city children. In 2014 he started a new string program “The Baltimore Bows” which has been an immediate success, and has been featured on a number of local and national media including NPR and the Baltimore Jewish Times. Yonatan has worked as an assistant violin teacher in the studio of Violaine Melancon at the Peabody Conservatory.

Yonatan is the recipient of several awards, including accolades from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, The Lurie Foundation, and Johns Hopkins University. He earned a Master of Music from the Chicago College of Performing Arts with Vadim Gluzman, and a Bachelor of Music from the Jerusalem Academy of Music with Matvei Lieberman. Yonatan has participated in festivals such as Keshet Eilon and the Perlman Music Program, and in masterclasses with Ivry Gitlis, Shmuel Askenasi, Shlomo Mintz and other prominent musicians. He is currently pursuing his Doctorate of Music degree in the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore with Violaine Melancon.