A worldknown violist, soloist and chamber musician, Mikhail Zemtsov is also an orchestral conductor and the Conservatories of Hague and Utrecht viola teacher. Besides, he's been invited for many times as juror for the list of international classical competitions, recently at Lionel Tertis Competition 2019, which resulted in permanent participating of his students in some of that, ended up with their prize-winning. Likewise, he's providing a young generation of violists with holding masterclasses all over the world and giving lessons in orchestral conducting for instrumentalists and choir conductors in Netherlands.
Meanwhile, he's not for a once been a principal conductor of different orchestras, including the Young Talent Symphony Orchestra by Rotterdam Conservatory where he's still serving since 2010. Also he's regularly taking part in orchestral performances as guest conductor in Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain and South America.
As a chamber musician he had an experience in working with Bella Davidovitch, Boris Berezovsky, Dmitri Sitkovetski, Sarah Chang, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, Misha Maisky; Leipziger, Jerusalem, Borodin quartets, alongside with several ensembles such as the Utrecht String Quartet, the Duo Macondo and founded by himself and consisting of his family members the Zemtsov Viola Quartet - of all viola players.
As a soloist throughout his career he's appeared on stages with Wiener Volksoper, Hamburger Symphoniker, Rheinische Philharmonie, Stavanger Symphony (Norway), The Hague Philharmonic (Netherlands) (among others) and with the conductors as Neeme Jarvi, Jaap van Zweden, Leif Segerstam, Dmitri Kitajenko.
Highly acclaimed and renowned artist he's recorded six chamber music CD's for Sony Masterworks, Tower Records and Deutche Welle, a 2016 recording of Bohuslav Martinů's Rhapsody-Concerto, H.337 with Maestro Neeme Jarvi and National Symphony Orchestra of Estonia on Chandos, all gained quite favorable reviews and critical evaluation, thus paying a tribute to his masterful teachers Michael Kugel, M. Nichetianu and B. Dinerstein.
By virtue of his practicing on masterclasses and lessons with Lev Markiz, Juozas Domarkas, Neeme and Paavo Jarvi, Gianandrea Noseda and Daniel Raisin he is still currently principal violist with The Hague Philharmonic Orchestra (Residentie Orkest) - a position he has held since 2001.