Igor Gruppman: Mormon Musician
Igor Gruppman is a multifaceted musician as a conductor, orchestra leader, chamber musician, violin soloist, concertmaster, and recording artist. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Gruppman was born on July 4, 1956, in Kiev, Ukraine. He immigrated to the United States in 1979. He debuted as a violinist with the Kiev Philharmonic Hall in 1967. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied under Leonid Kogan and Mstislav Rostropovich. He also studied with Jasha Heifetz at the USC School of Music in Los Angeles, California.
He conducts orchestras on four continents: He became the principal conductor of the Orchestra at Temple Square in 2003; he debuted with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in 2006; he debuted with the Marlinsky Orchestra in St. Petersburg in 2008; he debuted with the Orquesta Clasica Santa Cecilia in Madrid in 2014. He has also appeared several times as conductor and soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic. He was concertmaster of the San Diego Symphony (1988–1995), the London Symphony Orchestra (1995–1998), and was the associate conductor of the Florida Philharmonic from 1997 to 2003. He has frequently been a guest leader of orchestras such as London’s Royal Philharmonic, St. Martin in the Fields, Marrinsky Stradivari Orchestra, and Concerto Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra. In 2015, Gruppman and friends launched a new orchestra, The Soloists of Europe.
He is on the faculty of the Rotterdam Conservatory. For twenty years he taught at the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program in Idyllwild, California. He and his wife, violinist and violist Vesna Stefanovich Gruppman, cofounded the Gruppman International Violin Institute in 2002, where they select, train, and develop the careers of exceptionally gifted violinists from around the world using videoconferencing technology. They were faculty members at Brigham Young University from 1997 to 2003.
He and his wife were honored with a 1993 Grammy Award for their recording of Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto for two violins.
He plays the 1731 “Julles Garcin” Stradivarius violin, generously provided by the Erasmus Foundation. He is celebrated for his “rich and beautiful tone, elegant phrasing, drive, passion and virtuosity.”[1]
