Iakov Zats - biography
Iakov Zats was born in Moscow and attended the prestigious Central Music School there, after which he entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he graduated in viola with distinction under G. Odinez, and completed his doctorate in quartet.
In 1990 he began his performance career which led him to perform as a soloist and in chamber groups in Russia, England, France, Germany, Italy and the United States.
In 1992 he was appointed artistic director of the well-known chamber music ensemble, the New Chamber Orchestra of Moscow.
In 1994, Zats left Russia and settled in Italy, where he has had the opportunity to evolve as a musician, playing regularly for concert seasons in Milan, Palermo, Rome, Verona, and other Italian cities.
Zats has recently adapted Eugène Ysaÿe’s cello sonata, opus 28, for viola, published by White Prince Edition in 2006. This sonata has become one of the most virtuosic pieces of viola repertoire. Furthermore, for the same publisher, he adapted Three Romances opus 94 by Robert Schumann for piano and viola, which he presented at Kingsplace in London.
Open to all genres of music, he has played as principal violist under the baton of some of the greatest European conductors including Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Georges Prêtre, Carlo Maria Giulini, in various orchestras including the Moscow Soloists directed by Yuri Bashmet, Orchestra Sinfonica G. Verdi in Milan, Orchestra dell'Arena di Verona , and Orchestra Filarmonica Toscanini in Parma. In 2000 Claudio Abbado invited him to take part in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. In 2011 he was principal violist for two tours for the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.
Iakov Zats is professor of Viola at Conservatorio di Piacenza (Italy) and Professor of Viola at La Fondazione Scuola Civica di Musica e Danza di Desio, (Desio, Italy).
He conducts masterlclasses in Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and Croatia.