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The "Soloists of St.Petersburg" chamber ensemble, consisting of 16 strings and chembalo was founded in 1987 as a creative concord of talented musicians- young by age, but, in spite of that, already experienced and successful in solo, ensemble and orchestra activities in leading en-sembles and orchestras of St.Petersburg. Some of the reasons why the ensemble has being cre-ated are: the mutual sympathy, common creative interests, and, of course, a personality of their leader. 

Michail Gantvarg, a leading violinist of St.Petersburg for the last few decades, is a very noticeable and original person in the music life of the city. He has passed through quite a typical way for a modern artist. After winning a first prize at the Paganini International Competition in his youth, he was combining an intensive concert work together with being a principal violin in the St.Petersburg Philarmony Symphonic Orchestra directed by Yury Temirkanov. Together with that, he has started his teaching career in the St.Petersburg State Conservatory.

To the time of the Ensemble was created, M. Gantvarg was already a mature and well-known artist with his own creative outlook and performance style. He is one of the last successors of the legendary St.Petersburg violin school, which gave birth to a whole "constellation" of world famous violinists Trying to keep its best traditions, M. Gantvarg is always in the search of new ways of ex-pression, sometimes coming to non-traditional, even paradoxical performance solutions. His generous and "classic" playing manner, is combined with the creative freedom and improvising bits and total absence of routine. He is always in the process of co-creation with an author of the music he plays.

The main principles of M. Gantvarg's performance manner are being put to realization with his colleagues - the musicians of the "Soloists of St.Petersburg" Chamber Ensemble. The leader directs the whole Ensemble, which is reacting sensitive to any manifestation of his performance will. 

Qualities like top concentration of a musical time, sharp feeling of rhythm changes, high degree of performing freedom and rich timbre palette are the most noticeable in the Ensemble's performances. That "traits" are the cause of the originality of the Ensemble and always attract audience's attention. 

The repertoire of the Ensemble is very wide, and with its diversity, it shows an artistic taste of its leader and the musicians.
Among the most played pieces are:

• A "golden" pages of Baroque and Renaissance music (Vivaldi, Corelli, Handel, Bach, Pergolesi);
• Wiener classics (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven);
• Masterpieces of romantic music (Rossini, Grieg, Tchaikovskiy).

An important part is the music of the XXth century (Prokofiev, Schostakovitch, Schnitke, Bartok, Barber, Britten). The very new pieces are permanently brought to the audience by the musicians of the Ensemble among them are pieces written by composers of their own city (A. Petrov, B. Arapov, G. Korchmar, P. Gekker).

The "Soloists of St.Petersburg" have recorded and released more then 30 CDs, containing such capital works as

• "All Piano and Violin Mozart concertos";
• Monumental works by Vivaldi: "Harmonic Inspiration", "Tancies", "The Seasons";
• Unique by it's technical difficulties Beethoven's "Great Fugue";
• Six Sonatas by Rossini;
• A series of Bach's instrumental concertos etc.

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