Gidon Kremer"s technical brilliance, inward but passionate playing, and commitment to both new works and new interpretations of old works have made him one of the most respected violinists in the world today. Kremer was born on February 27, 1947, in Riga, Latvia, which was then part of the Soviet Union. His parents were both professional violinists, and, as with so many virtuosi, Kremer"s gift was apparent almost immediately after a violin was put in his hands. He eventually became one of the proudest advocates for the music of Russian and eastern European composers such as Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaydulina, Giya Kancheli, and Arvo Pärt. A remarkably versatile player, Kremer"s repertoire encompasses the standard Baroque, Classical and Romantic literature, as well as new works by composers such as Stockhausen, Henze, Nono, and Adams. As a violinist, Kremer has never settled for the status quo. Always a champion of the new and the rare, he has rhetorically asked "Why ride the same old warhorses to success?" In the late 1990s, he created the punningly named Kremerata Baltica with a group of young Latvian players; the group"s recordings of Pärt and Astor Piazzolla placed them out in front of two of the hottest trends of the twentieth century"s end. His recordings with the group have won numerous international awards, including a Grammy in 2002. Kremer enjoys thumbing his nose at conventional wisdom, regularly creating radical reinterpretations of the classics. Sometimes these have created controversy, as in his 1980 recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with somewhat bizarre cadenzas by Schnittke. Whatever critics mey say, Kremer"s performances are never boring. He disdains virtuosity for virtuosity"s sake, but is nonetheless one of the most technically proficient violinists in the world