Israeli violinist Gregory Ahss began studying the violin at the age of 5 at the Gnessin School of Music in his native Moscow. He went on to study at the Israel Conservatory, the Tel Aviv Academy of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston with Lena Mazor, Irena Svetlova and Donald Weilerstein. During his studies, he won the Academy's violin and chamber music competitions, as well as the Israeli Performance Prize and the Porto International Violin Competition in Portugal.
From 1993 to 2001, Gregory Ahss was a fellow of the Israeli-American Cultural Foundation. While still a student, he founded the Tal Piano Trio, which has won a series of awards, including first prize at the prestigious Premio Trio di Trieste international chamber music competition in Trieste, Italy, in 2002.
As a soloist, he has performed under the direction of Claudio Abbado and Yannick Nézet-Séguin with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Bologna Mozart Orchestra and the Salzburg Camerata. He also conducts these ensembles from the podium at various concerts.
His chamber music partners include Natalia Gutman, Sabine Meyer, Gautier Capuçon, Valentin Erben and Daniel Hope, with whom he performed the Bach and Vivaldi double concertos with the Camerata Salzburg at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad.
Gregory Ahss has already been invited as concertmaster by many leading orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Orchestra of the National Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome and the Mozart Orchestra. He has been invited to international festivals such as the Verbier Festival, Gotland Festival and Israel Festival.
As concertmaster, Gregory Ahss conducted numerous concerts with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from 2005 to 2011. He is one of the concertmasters of the Lucern Festival Orchestra. Since 2012, he has been concertmaster of the Camerata Salzburg.
