David Garrett Photo: Christoph Köstlin
German violinist David Garrett doesn't confine himself to "the bubble of classical music" for inspiration. As a crossover artist, he's performed pieces by Metallica, Queen and Coldplay, alongside dancers and pyrotechnics.
Next month, "the David Garrett vibe" comes to Auckland. The audience will hear Garrett perform pieces from his new album Iconic - a tribute to the 20th-century violin masters he loved as a child.
The David Garrett Trio performs at the Auckland Town Hall on Friday 29 September.
Although he hates the term 'child prodigy', Garrett started performing and recording at an extremely young age and signed with the German classical music label Deutsche Grammophon at just 12.
"I don't look back fondly [at that time] but at least I can say that I turned it around in my favour… I made it work for me, even though it was a very difficult and very tough childhood," he tells Bryan Crump.
Practising seven hours a day when you're seven years old isn't healthy for a young child, Garrett says, but he never lost his love for music.
"I recall being fed up with the instrument, fed up with the violin, fed up with my dad, who was very pushy, but never with music.
"The love for music, even through the toughest nights of practising with my dad, with screaming and stuff, the love was never destroyed by that."
To get away from his "very strict" father, Garrett eventually set off for the Julliard School of Music in New York: "It felt extremely free to me coming from my parent's home, so that was just what I needed. It was a good choice."
He's grateful that as a classically trained violinist in the 21st century, he gets to explore and perform jazz, RnB, EDM, pop and rock pieces.
"There's amazing great talent in every genre and I pick the things I love. I pick the things I think have value and are extremely well-written.
"How can you not try and play some of this stuff with your violin?"
Throughout history, music always has been primarily entertainment, Garrett says, and he enjoys getting a reaction from his live audiences.
At his crossover classical shows, he'll sometimes venture out amongst them, not with a Stradivarius in hand but another decent and still "not cheap" violin.
"People want to feel close to me and I want to give them that… if it's possible to walk into the audience, then I am certainly willing to do it in order to connect."
In Auckland, Garrett will perform pieces from the album Iconic alongside a classical guitarist and a bass player.
"It's on the one hand very traditional, but it gives a total David Garrett vibe - something innovative in combination with tradition.
"It's a whole two hours of forgetting your troubles ...That's what musicians are for."
As a 21st-century violinist who also knows how to write and arrange music, Garrett likes to put his own "personal touch" on any piece of music which has either a great harmonic progression or a great melody.
Beethoven could pull it off in a three-minute composition, he says, but so too could The Beatles, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury.
"I'm not gonna be stuck up and say 'I only touch classical composers'. Those were great, great, great inventors and on top of that they knew how to write, they knew what a great melody is, and that's what it is all about - 300 years ago and today, as well.'
Music played in the interview:
SHOSTAKOVICH: Praeludium, from Three Violin Duets - David Garrett (violin), Franck van der Heijden, Orchestra the Prezent (DG 4860947)
DINICU: Hora Staccato - David Garrett (violin), Franck van der Heijden, Orchestra the Prezent (DG 4860947)
Pieces from the album Iconic:
