But the spotlight fell on viola player Amihai Grosz […]. His bowing arm has near mechanical energy while his resonant tone flickers between coarse and silken, glabrous and scabrous. The Guardian

Amihai Grosz is the 1st Principal violist of the Berlin Philharmonic and artistic director of the Stretton Summer. Being one of his generation’s most sought-after soloists and chamber musicians he founded the Jerusalem String Quartet in 1995, which today is one of the most celebrated chamber music ensembles in the world. As a soloist, Amihai plays with the most renowned orchestras and on the stages of international concert halls and festivals, such as Concertgebouw, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, Delft Chamber Music Festival, Verbier Festival or BBC Proms.

Amihai Grosz was awarded first prize at the Brown-Roger-Siegel Competition (1996) and was the Gottesman Prize winner at the Aviv Competition in Jerusalem (2007). Signed to the Alpha Classics label, Amihai Grosz’s albums released in 2023 and 2024, feature the Bartók Viola Concerto with the Orchestra National de Lille and Alexander Bloch and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, recorded with violinist Julien Chauvin and the acclaimed early music ensemble Concert de la Loge.

Amihai Grosz plays a very important and extraordinary viola by Antonio Stradivari, ‘MacDonald’, Cremona 1719 – a generous loan by a member of the Stretton Society.