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China Hong Kong Youth Symphony Orchestra Visiting Artist  - Alexandre Da Costa

“It is with lots of enthusiasm that I recommend a great artist that I
appreciate and strongly support, violinist Alexandre Da Costa.”
RAFAEL FRÜHBECK DE BURGOS
Musical America Artist of the Year 2010


“Alexandre Da Costa belongs to the most talented interpreters of his
generation. His playing is characterized by its uniqueness and pronounced
individuality.”
PROF. ZAKHAR BRON


Winner of the 2012 Juno Award, Alexandre Da Costa was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He showed an
uncommon interest for both the violin and piano at a very early age. By the age of nine, he had the astonishing
ability to perform his first concerts with stunning virtuosity on both instruments, which brought him recognition as a
musical prodigy. His chosen professional career as a violinist began very early and, after encouragement from
Charles Dutoit, he was soon performing regularly as soloist with orchestra as well as in recital.


At age 18, he obtained a Master’s Degree in violin and a First Prize from the Conservatoire de Musique du Québec.
Concurrently, he also obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Piano Interpretation from the University of Montreal.
Subsequently, told he had to choose one instrument, he studied in Madrid at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina
Sofia with a legendary violin teacher who became his mentor, Zakhar Bron (whose previous students famously
include the likes of Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin). He later pursued post-graduate studies at the Universität für
Musik und Darstellende Kunst of Vienna, Austria, with G. Schulz, C. Altenburger and R. Honeck. Among the many
other prizes that followed were the Sylva Gelber Foundation Award from the Canada Council for the Arts, and in
2003 the Council’s Musical Instrument Bank decided to go further and award him the “1689 Baumgartner
Stradivarius”. In 2010, he received the prestigious Virginia-Parker Prize, one of Canada’s highest cultural
distinctions.


Winner of many national and international first prizes, Alexandre Da Costa has given over a thousand concerts and
recitals throughout North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. He has performed the major halls of Vienna
(Musikverein), Berlin (Philharmonie), New York (Carnegie Hall), Beijing (Poly-Theater) and beyond. The orchestras
with which he has played include London’s Royal Philharmonic, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin
Symphony, the National TV and Radio Orchestra of Spain and the Vienna Symphony. Conductors he has played
under include Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Leonard Slatkin, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Vasily Petrenko, Matthias
Bamert, John Axelrod and Peter Oundjian. His live performance broadcasts have aired on BBC, WestDeutscher
Rundfunk (WDR), CBC, NPR, ORF and many others. Da Costa has given the world premieres of works by Elliott
Carter, Michael Daugherty, Lorenzo Palomo, Jean Lesage and Airat Ichmouratov.


As a recording artist, he has more than 20 CDs on, variously, Warner Classics, JVC/Victor, ATMA, XXI-21 Records
and Octave/Universal, among them the world premiere recordings of the Violin Concertos by Portuguese
composers Luis de Freitas Branco and Armando José Fernandes. In 2012, he won the JUNO award for “Classical
Album of the Year” for his recording of the concertos by American composer Michael Daugherty, with the Montreal
Symphony under Pedro Halffter for Warner Classics. He now records for Warner Classics International and Acacia
Classics/Universal Music Group.


In addition to his concert schedule, Alexandre Da Costa is Professor of violin at the Gatineau Music Conservatory
(Ottawa, Canada), and regularly gives masterclasses at various universities and conservatories around the world.
He was also named Musical Development Director of the Canimex Foundation, an organization gathering an
impressive collection of fine instruments for the benefit of talented artists. Alexandre Da Costa now plays a
"Guarneri del Gesù" of 1730 and a Sartory bow, loaned by Canimex.

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China Hong Kong Youth Symphony Orchestra @ 2024