“Don’t tell anybody”

Click here for the German edition!

A Life Between East and West

*Don’t Tell Anybody* by David Geringas is the English-language edition of his memoir, which is as personal as it is extraordinary. Geringas was six years old when Stalin died. He grew up in Vilnius in a Jewish family, took up the cello almost by chance, and eventually went to Moscow to study with Mstislav Rostropovich. His success at the International Tchaikovsky Competition paved the way for an international career as a soloist, conductor, and teacher.

From Soviet Lithuania to the World's Stages

Geringas recounts his childhood in Soviet Lithuania, his studies at the Moscow Conservatory, musical life behind the Iron Curtain, and his emigration to the West. He describes competitions, concert tours, and teaching, as well as his collaborations with prominent composers and artists—including György Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Witold Lutosławski.

But David Geringas’s *Don’t Tell Anybody* is far more than just the chronicle of an international musical career. In a candid, vivid, and subtly humorous style, he tells of family and loss, friendship and artistic freedom, Jewish history, migration, and life straddling different languages, countries, and cultures.

Personal, immediate, and full of stories

The book is based on lengthy, recorded conversations with music journalist Jan Brachmann. As a result, it retains the spontaneous tone of oral storytelling: personal, informal, and full of surprising twists and turns.

The key biographical and musical milestones—Vilnius, Moscow, Rostropovich, the Tchaikovsky Competition, emigration, and encounters with prominent composers—form the focal points of the book.

The English-language edition of the multifaceted memoirs of one of the most important cellists of his generation. Coming out on November 1—pre-order now!

Press Reviews

“Jan Brachmann interviewed David Geringas extensively for the book. And he let him speak his mind! At times, it seems as though the cellist, as he tells his story, moves freely, like a grasshopper leaping from thin blades of grass to thick stalks. And it is precisely these spontaneous leaps of thought that Brachmann has transcribed with particular precision, as if they were precious ornamentations in a Boccherini cello concerto. Brachmann never loses his sense of the grand melodic arc in the process. He propels it forward with a gently pulsating narrative rhythm. It is these little escapades in the memoirs that, in the literal sense, make the cellist David Geringas “truly familiar” to us in the book *Don’t Tell Anyone*.”
– Sylvia Schreiber, BR Klassik.

You can learn more about David Geringas and his international concert activities here on his official website.