Itamar Ringel

Violist Itamar Ringel is active as chamber musician, soloist and teacher, his wide range of activities representing his dedication to culturally open, well informed and sensitive musicianship.

He performed among others as soloist with orchestras and ensembles in Israel and Europe, as principal viola in the opera house of Valencia, Spain, and was teaching assistant to his teacher and mentor of many years, Prof. Tabea Zimmermann, at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin.

Itamar has taught chamber music courses in Israel, Vermont (USA) and in the Kronberg Academy (Germany), where he also collaborated with leading artists such as Gidon Kremer, Lynn Harrell and Gary Hoffman. Other major chamber music festival appearances include the Jerusalem, Ravinia, Yellow Barn and Verbier Festivals.

His recent recording projects include a recording with Kathrin Tenhagen as soloist with the Essen chamber orchestra for the German label Ars Produktions, and a recording, together with English pianist Sam Haywood, of pieces by the exceptionally talented London-based young composer Alma Deutscher to the UK’s TV Channel 4.

His work is further inspired by his former teachers Kim Kashkashian, Martha Katz and Lars Anders Tomter; composer György Ligeti, whose Viola Sonata was the focus of his doctoral dissertation at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston; and teachers from his high school- the Israel Academy for Arts and Sciences in Jerusalem. These include André Hajdu (composition, improvisation), Michael Wolpe (analysis, music history) and Bat-Sheva Rubinstein (ear training, harmony and counterpoint), all of whom made significant contributions to his musical thought from an early age.

Itamar has received grants from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, the New England Conservatory, and the Dan-David Foundation. He plays a viola built in 1980 in Tel-Aviv by Mendel Segal, and a bow built in 2010 in Kibbutz Ein-Carmel by David Samuels.