Yuri Bashmet is one of the most outstanding musicians of the present day. He studied music at the Moscow State Conservatoire under Vadim Borisovsky and Fyodor Druzhinin. Under the latter, Yuri Bashmet trained and held an assistantship at the Moscow Conservatoire (1976-1978).
From the late 1970s and early 1980s, Yuri Bashmet´s determined ascent of music´s Mount Olympus began. The start of his concert activities is connected with a tour to Germany by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, founded by Rudolf Barshai (1976). Since 1978, Yuri Bashmet has taught at the Moscow Conservatoire, as a lecturer (1988), and later as a professor (1996). Starting in 1980, Yuri Bashmet has regularly given master classes in Japan, Europe, America and Hong Kong. His students, several of whom have gone on to become prize-winners at international competitions, perform with the world´s greatest orchestras.
In 1986 Yuri Bashmet formed the chamber orchestra Moscow Soloists. Later, several musicians took the decision to remain in France, while Yuri Bashmet abandoned leadership of the orchestra, which soon after ceased to exist. In 1992 Yuri Bashmet founded a new ensemble using the old name, its members the most talented young musicians of Russia, graduates and post-graduate students of the Moscow Conservatoire.
In 1996 Yuri Bashmet established the "Experimental Viola Faculty" at the Moscow Conservatoire, where in addition to solo viola works the repertoire was expanded to include viola roles in chamber, opera and symphony music as well as a strong focus on the history of performing styles from the past and present.
The geography of the musician´s appearances is vast: it includes the finest concert halls of Europe, the USA, Canada, South America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. For the first time in world performing practice, Yuri Bashmet gave solo viola concerts in such venues as Carnegie Hall (New York), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Barbican Hall, (London), Berlin´s Philharmonie, La Scala (Milan), the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic.
His solo concerts and ensemble appearances with other outstanding performers never fail to pack halls and rouse lively interest. Musicians with whom Yuri Bashmet has performed include Svyatoslav Rikhter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Isaac Stern, Gidon Kremer, Marta Algerikh, Oleg Kagan, Natalia Gutman, Viktor Tretyakov, Rafael Kubelik, Seiji Osawa, Valery Gergiev, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Colin Davies, John Eliot Gardiner, Yehudi Menuhin, Charles Dutoit, Neville Merriner, Paul Sacher, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kurt Masur, Bernard Haitink, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov and Nikolaus Harnoncourt to name but a few.
The programmes of Yuri Bashmet´s concert performances are unusually varied and include music from various styles and eras. Many contemporary composers have dedicated or specially written works for him. These include Schnittke´s concerto, Monologue and Concert for Three (dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, Yuri Bashmet and Gidon Kremer), concerti by Gubaidulina, Аlexander Tchaikovsky, Barkauskas, Eshpai and Ruders. Golovin´s Sonata Breve, Raskatov´s viola sonata and Kancheli´s Liturgy and Styx.
Yuri Bashmet is the founder and jury chair of Russia´s only International Viola Competition (Moscow) as well as president of the International Lionel Tertis Viola Competition in the United Kingdom. He is the recipient of various awards and regalia from Russia as well as from other nations. In 1995, he received the Sonnings Musikfond Prize, one of the most prestigious in the world, which was conferred in Copenhagen. Previous recipients of this award include Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Arthur Rubinstein, Dmitry Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich, Svyatoslav Rikhter and Gidon Kremer.
