Performance of the First Movement by Barbara Buntrock

Through his virtuosity, strength of personality and high intelligence, Yuri Bashmet has given the viola a new prominence in musical life. The pre-eminent viola player of the modern age, he has motivated the leading composers of our time to expand the repertoire with significant new music. He is Artistic Director of the December Evenings festival in Moscow, Principal Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of New Russia, and the founder and director of Moscow Soloists. He also appears throughout the world in the dual role of conductor and soloist.

Born in 1953 in Rostov-on-Don in Russia, he spent his childhood in Lvov in Ukraine before studying at the Moscow Conservatoire with Vadim Borisovsky (of the Beethoven Quartet) and Feodor Druzhinin. His international career was launched in 1976 when he won the International Viola Competition in Munich. Since then he has appeared with all the world's great orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Boston, Chicago and Montreal Symphony Orchestras, New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra, which presented its own Yuri Bashmet Festival.

He has inspired many composers to write for him, enjoying strong personal and professional relationships with Alfred Schnittke and Sofia Gubaidulina in particular. Away from the concert hall he brings an enquiring and perceptive mind to life beyond classical music: he is an enthusiast for the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and has hosted his own political discussion show on Russian television. He plays a 1758 Testore viola (a similar model to the one Mozart played) which he bought in 1971.

Studying Shostakovich's Sonata for Viola and Piano with Bashmet means learning this towering work from the player who has done more than anyone to put the viola at the centre of the stage. His insights into phrasing, tone and the music's deeper intent are something no score alone can teach.