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David Garrett, born David Bongartz in Aachen, Germany, on September 4, 1980, grew up in a family with a lawyer father and a classical ballerina mother. His older brother Alexander took violin lessons, inspiring David to pick up the violin himself at age four, teaching himself initially. Recognizing his talent, his parents arranged for proper instruction, leading to his debut with the Hamburg Philharmonic at age ten.
By thirteen, he became the youngest artist to sign an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. In 1999, at the height of his early career, he paused to study musicology and composition at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York. To support himself, he worked as a bartender, janitor, and library clerk before being discovered by a modeling agency. At Juilliard, he studied under renowned instructors such as Itzhak Perlman and Eric Ewazen, and in 2003, he won the school's Composition Competition with a fugue composed in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach.
After completing his studies, Garrett launched a crossover violinist career, aiming to bridge the gap between classical music and younger audiences. In 2006, Decca released his debut crossover album "Free" (also known as "Virtuoso" by DEAG), featuring classics like Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee," Paganini's "Caprice No. 24," and a cover of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters."
He earned the ECHO Classic 2008 award in the "Borderless Classic" category. His second album, "Encore," released in October 2008, surpassed the success of the first, topping classical and crossover charts in the USA for months.
Returning to his classical roots, Garrett released "Classic Romance" in November 2009, which gained immense popularity and won him the ECHO Classic 2010 for "Bestseller of the Year." His next album, "Rock Symphonies," released in July 2010, combined rock and metal hits from bands like Nirvana, Guns N' Roses, Metallica, and U2 with pieces by Vivaldi and Beethoven, appealing to a younger audience. This album earned him two ECHO awards in 2011: "Best Domestic DVD Production" for the live DVD "David Garrett: Rock Symphonies - Open Air Live" and "Best Artist" in the "Rock/Pop Domestic" category.
Following his successful Rock Symphonies Tour in 2011, Garrett returned to classical music with the album "Legacy," released by Decca in Germany in November 2011. The album features Beethoven's Violin Concerto and works by Fritz Kreisler. Upon release, "Legacy" reached number 6 on the overall German charts, becoming the highest-ranking instrumental classical album in German chart history, and achieved gold status by January 2012.
