(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) — Israeli violinist and international superstar Vadim Gluzman will perform works by Mozart, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Castelnuovo-Tedesco in a duet concert with his wife, pianist Angela Yoffe at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Saturday, December 21, 2013, at 6pm, as part of the Close Encounters with Music chamber series.

In technique and sensibility, violinist Vadim Gluzman harkens back to the Golden Age of violinists of the 19th and 20th centuries, while demonstrating the passion and energy of the 21st century. Lauded by both critics and audiences as a performer of depth, virtuosity and technical brilliance, he has appeared throughout the world as a soloist and in a duo setting with his wife, pianist Angela Yoffe.

Gluzman’s warm tone, developed out of his miraculous “ex-Leopold Auer” Stradivarius (on which the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto was premiered) takes its inspiration from the timeless examples of Mischa Elman, Nathan Milstein and David Oistrakh.

Gluzman’s extraordinary artistry both sustains the great violin tradition of the 19th and 20th centuries and enlivens it with the dynamism of today. A recent music critic captured the singular quality of his approach to violin playing: “Most remarkable was his ability to sustain Tchaikovsky’s romantic emotionalism without falling into vibrato-drenched clichés,” wrote Chris Waddington of New Orleans’s Times-Picayune. “Gluzman did it by unleashing an astounding palette of colors from his violin: a golden hive-like droning, finger-snap pizzicatos, and a plunging dive-bomber wail that had me thinking of klezmer — and of Jimi Hendrix calling down fire from heaven in ‘Machine Gun.’” He goes on to say, “For folks who prefer the classics, I’d sum up Gluzman this way: He is better than Itzhak Perlman, better than Midori, better than Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and all the other big-name string titans who have soloed with the LPO [Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra] in recent years.”

Gluzman maintains a dizzying international schedule:  Within a mere six months, he will have performed with the Austin, Buffalo, Atlanta, and Columbus symphonies in the U.S.; the Russian National Philharmonic in Moscow, Orquestra Sinfoica do Parana in Brazil; Orchestra National de Lyon, in Sofia Bulgaria, with the Residendtie Orchestra in The Hague, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Japan, and back to solo with the Louisiana Symphony.  On November 18 he performs at a Holocaust Memorial Concert marking the 70th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising at Théatre des Champs Elysées.

Tickets, $45 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $25 (Balcony), are available at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center box office, 413.528.0100; through Close Encounters With Music at 800-843-0778; or by emailing cewmusic@aol.com.