Maxim Vengerov

Maxim Vengerov was born in 1974 in Novosibirsk

Vengerov was born in Novosibirsk in 1974 to a Jewish family. His father was an oboist and his mother led a children's choir at an orphanage. He sang in her choir as a small child and began violin lessons at age 5 with Galina Turchaninova.

In 1984 he won a young violinists competition in Lublin, Poland. He studied with Zakhar Bron and followed him to London and to Lübeck in Germany. In 1990 he won the Carl Flesch Competition, which brought a recording contract with Teldec.

In 1990 he moved to Israel with his family and studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. He served for a short time in the IDF. In 1997 he became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, the first classical musician in that role.

After a shoulder injury in 2005 he turned to conducting. In 2006 he founded the Musicians of Tomorrow school in northern Israel, and in 2010 he became the first chief conductor of the Menuhin Festival Gstaad Orchestra. He has taught at the Royal College of Music in London.

In 2011 he married art historian Olga Gringolts. They have three children and live in Monaco. He plays the 1727 ex-Kreutzer Stradivarius violin.