Born in Siberia in 1971, he started to play violin at the age of five and six months later had his first stage performance. At only eleven he won the gold medal in all age categories in the Wienawski Competition and gave his recital debuts in Moscow and St Petersburg. In 1985 at fourteen he made his debuts in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin, Helsinki; a year later in Carnegie Hall. Two years later Vadim Repin was the youngest ever winner of the most prestigious and demanding violin competition in the world, the Reine Elisabeth Concours.

Since then he has performed with the world’s greatest orchestras: the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Hamburg, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, the Philharmonia, Royal Concertgebouw, San Francisco Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and La Scala, working with leading conductors such as Ashkenazy, Boulez, Bychkov, Chailly, Chung, Conlon, Dohnanyi, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Fedoseyev, Gatti, Gergiev, Jansons, Neeme and Paavo Järvi, Krivine, Levine, Luisi, Marriner, Masur, Mehta, Muti, Nagano, Rattle, Rozhdestvensky, Temirkanov and Zinman.

Vadim Repin has been a frequent guest at festivals such as Tanglewood, Ravinia, Rheingau, Gstaad, Verbier and the BBC Proms. Last season he appeared with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and on tour in Britain, and gave concerts with the New York, Boston and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, the Chicago and Detroit Symphonies, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. On 1 January 2008 Vadim Repin played Saint-Saens’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso in Beijing under Ozawa to mark the opening of the new National Performing Arts Center; on 1 May 2008 he performed the Bruch Violin Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle in Moscow on the occasion of Europe Day – a concert broadcast live throughout Europe. Later that month he was in Tel Aviv, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel with the Israel Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti.

Mr Repin regularly collaborates with Nikolai Lugansky and Itamar Golan in recital, and the 2008/09 season is marked by some twenty-five recitals, commencing with the Salzburg Festival and continuing in cities such as Vienna, Geneva, London, Brussels, Paris, Luxembourg, Milan, New York, Washington and Tokyo. Other highlights this season are tours with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, with visits to Italy, Germany, the United States and Japan; and collaborations with Christian Thielemann, Gustavo Dudamel, Jonathan Nott, and with Zoltán Kocsis both in recital and as Repin’s conductor in the Beethoven concerto.

Vadim Repin’s many CDs include prize-winning recordings of the great Russian violin concerti by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky on Warner Classics. His first recording on the Deutsche Grammophon label features the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti, coupled with Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata with Martha Argerich, and has received critical acclaim. He plays on the 1736 ‘Von Szerdahely’ by Guarneri del Gesù.