Roman Mints

Roman Mints is one of the most outstanding and original musicians of his generation, named “unofficial leader of the new generation of musicians” by Nezavisimaya newspaper and has collaborated with violinists Gidon Kremer, Alina Ibragimova, Boris Brovtsyn, Alexander Sitkovetsky; flautist Sharon Bezaly, oboists Dmitri Bulgakov and Nicholas Daniel; pianists Katya Apekisheva, Ingrid Fliter, Alexander Kobrin, Charles Owen, Vadym Kholodenko, Andrey Gugnin, Lukas Geniušas; cellists Boris Andrianov, Jamie Walton, Alexander Buzlov and Kristina Blaumane; violists Maxim Rysanov and Nils Mönkemeyer; singers Gweneth-Ann Jeffers, William Purefoy, Anna Dennis. He has worked alongside conductors Andrew Davis, Saulius Sondeckis, Vladimir Ziva, Vladimir Ponkin, Philipp Chizhevsky; amongst others.

He has performed with such prominent groups as London Mozart Players, London Chamber Orchestra, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Musica Viva Orchestra, Russian Philharmonia, Kremerata Baltica, Prague Soloists and Prague Sinfonia.

Roman has recorded for ECM, Harmonia Mundi, Quartz and other labels, with his albums featuring a number of world-premiere recordings. An album of works by Dobrinka Tabakova for ECM was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium. His recording of solo violin music, with an innovative recording approach invented by Roman and dubbed “spatial orchestration,” was a CD of the week at WQXR Radio New York and on the annual wish list of Fanfare magazine critics. The album of Leonid Desyatnikov’s music for violin and orchestra was nominated for ICMA Award and received a Five Stars review for performance and recording with BBC Music Magazine. His album of Ysaÿe Sonatas won a “Supersonic Award” from Pizzicato Magazine.

Roman has given Russian premieres of works by Golijov, Tavener, MacMillan, Scelsi and Mozetich and has also given world premieres of over fifty works by Tabakova, Desyatnikov, Langer, Bennett, Irvine, Burrell, Vassiliev, Kurbatov and others.

In 1998 Roman Mints and oboist Dmitry Bulgakov founded the Homecoming Chamber Music Festival in Moscow, which has gained widespread recognition and a substantial following in Russia. The core of Homecoming concert programmes are themed selections of works with one powerful underlying but not necessarily musical, idea behind them. Since the inception of the festival, Roman has authored more than 60 such programmes. In April 2002, Roman co directed the Suppressed Music project in Russia, which comprised of two concerts and a conference on composers whose music had been suppressed. A book and CD were released as a result of this project, by the Klassika XXI Publishing House.

Outside the classical field, Roman has worked with free-improvising saxophonist Paul Dunmall, vocalist Alisa Ten, the Brian Irvine Ensemble, Pokrovsky Ensemble, and Russian IDM group EU. He has also participated in several theatre productions including Langer’s Ariadne and Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. He has worked with theatre directors Vasily Barkhatov and Tim Hopkins, choreographers Alla Sigalova and Oleg Glushkov and film director Alexander Zeldovich. His recording of the Mozetich Violin Concerto ‘Affairs of the Heart’ was used in productions by Hong Kong Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Q-dance company.

Roman Mints was born in Moscow and began playing the violin at the age of five. In 1994 Roman won a Foundation Scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, and also studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, winning prizes at each. His teachers were L. Svetlova, N. Fikhtengoltz and F. Andrievsky. Roman Mints plays a Francesco Ruggieri violin, circa 1685.