He can move without a break from the most hushed, liquid legato to a huge, hall-filling fortissimo.'New York Times.

Yuri Bashmet is 'without doubt, one of the world's greatest living musicians'.The Times.

Born in 1953 in Rostov-on-Don in Russia, Yuri Bashmet spent his childhood in Lvov in the Ukraine. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory, first with Vadim Borisovsky, violist of the Beethoven Quartet, and later with Feodor Druzhinin. He subsequently became the youngest person ever to be appointed to a professorship at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1976 he won first prize at the International Viola Competition in Munich which launched his international career.

He has appeared with all the world's leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Montreal Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras and London's Philharmonia and London Philharmonic Orchestras. The London Symphony Orchestra presented a four concert Yuri Bashmet Festival in 1993 at the Barbican. In 1998 Bashmet was 'International Artist in Residence' for the Bath International Festival.

Yuri Bashmet has inspired many composers to write for him. He enjoyed an especially close and productive relationship with Alfred Schnittke whose Viola Concerto was premièred at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1986 and which has become firmly established in the repertoire. Other works written for Bashmet include Georgian composer Giya Kancheli's Viola Concerto (premièred at the Berlin Festival), The Myrrh Bearer by John Tavener, a concerto by Poul Ruders, and Sofia Gubaidulina 's Viola Concerto, premièred with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Kent Nagano in April 1997.

Bashmet also gave the world première of Benjamin Britten's recently-edited Double Concerto for violin and viola with Gidon Kremer and the Hallé Orchestra under Kent Nagano in Manchester in February 1998, and in November 1999 he performed in the world première of Kancheli's Styx, playing the solo viola part written especially for him. Mark-Anthony Turnage has recently completed a concerto for him, the world première of which will take place in Cleveland in November 2002.

In a number of major concert halls, including La Scala in Milan and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Bashmet has been the first violist ever to give a solo recital. He has appeared on many occasions with Sviatoslav Richter and has performed chamber music with numerous leading artists including Natalia Gutman, the Borodin Quartet, Gidon Kremer, Viktoria Mullova, Mstislav Rostropovich and Maxim Vengerov.

In 1992 Bashmet began working with a new group, Moscow Soloists, which he directs himself. This group is comprised of musicians nominated by professors at the Moscow Conservatory as the cream of the new generation of string players. The Moscow Soloists have been rapturously received in Moscow, Athens, Amsterdam, Paris and at the BBC Promenade Concerts in London.

Yuri Bashmet records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon and his numerous recordings include an arrangement for viola and string orchestra of Brahms' Clarinet Quintet and Shostakovich's Quartet No.13 performed with The Moscow Soloists for Sony Classical and Britten's Double Concerto for Violin and Viola with Kent Nagano and the Hallé Orchestra, for Erato. Most recently, he has recorded the Gubaidulina Concerto and Kancheli Styx, due for release in Spring