Gints Glinka

"I consider Gints Glinka to be one of the brightest conductors of the younger generation; he is doubtless something extraordinary!" – so says composer Pēteris Vasks. Since 2002, Gints Glinka has been a regular guest conductor with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and at the Latvian National Opera. Glinka studied choral and orchestral conducting at the Latvian Academy of Music. In 1997, Glinka continued his studies in orchestral conducting with Michel Tabachnik and Frans Rasmussen at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. While in Copenhagen, he gained experience at the Royal Theatre and took part in master classes given by Helmuth Rilling, Kurt Sanderling and Pierre Boulez. In 2000, Glinka was Assistant with the Guildhall Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra. After a very successful graduation concert in 2001, Glinka was granted a debut year at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and a debut concert with the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra and cellist David Geringas. In the same year, he conducted in a Royal Theatre and Opera Academy co-production in Copenhagen. Since then, Glinka has conducted the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic, the Warszawa Philharmonic, the Copenhagen Youth and the Odense Symphony orchestras, and has made recordings with the Danish Radio Sinfonietta. In 2001, Glinka was awarded the Classical Conductors Prize by the Danish Conductors Association and was invited to join the association. In 2003/04 he studied with Maestro Zubin Mehta at the Bayerishe Staatsoper and Daniel Barenboim at the Staatsoper Berlin. Glinka has already mastered a very broad repertoire which encompasses composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis. Recently, Glinka has started to include Latvian contemporary music in his concert programmes.