A recipient of two prestigious Diapason d’Or awards for his recording of Weinberg’s Violin Sonatas Yuri Kalnits was described by reviewers as ‘an interpreter of the highest order’. He has participated in festivals throughout the world such as Festival Musicales Internationales Guil-Durance (France), Young Artist Peninsula Music Festival (USA), Festival Cziffra (France), Wat...
Read More

A recipient of two prestigious Diapason d’Or awards for his recording of Weinberg’s Violin Sonatas Yuri Kalnits was described by reviewers as ‘an interpreter of the highest order’. He has participated in festivals throughout the world such as Festival Musicales Internationales Guil-Durance (France), Young Artist Peninsula Music Festival (USA), Festival Cziffra (France), Waterford International Music Festival (Ireland), Irina Kandinskaya and Friends (Russia), Pharos Trust Festival (Cyprus), Festival “Musica da camera” (Germany), Festival International Ciudad de Ubeda (Spain), Beyond the music Festival (Spain), Loch Shiel Spring Festival (Scotland), Ljubljana International Festival and has played at many important venues including The Purcell Room, Kings Place, St. John’s Smith Square, Barbican, St. Martin-in the-Fields, Small Hall of Moscow Conservatoire, Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and Suntory Hall. Tours have taken him to Russia, Ireland, Germany, Israel, France, Switzerland, Spain, Greece, USA, Hong Kong and Cyprus.
As a concerto soloist he has appeared with the London Festival Orchestra, Mozart Festival Orchestra, Arpeggione Chamber Orchestra, London Soloist Chamber Orchestra, Novosibirsk Symphony Orchestra, Kazan Chamber Orchestra “La Primavera”, London Musical Arts Ensemble, Minsk Symphony Orchestra and the New Philharmonia Koln to name a few and his playing has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, New Zealand national radio and ABC Radio Australia. A dedicated chamber musician, Yuri has worked among others with such artists as Ivry Gitlis, Eduard Brunner, Emanuel Abbühl and Alexander Chaushian. Together with cellist Julia Morneweg Yuri also co-directs the London concert series ChamberMusicBox which brings together leading British and European artists.
Born in Moscow into a musical family, he received his first violin lessons from his father and went on to become a pupil at Moscow’s Central Music School and later at the Gnessin Music School for Gifted Children. At the age of 16 he began studying at the Royal College of Music (London) with Professor Itzhak Rashkovsky, winning several major College prizes, including the Foundation Scholarship, W.H. Reed, Isolde Menges prizes and Leonard Hirsch Prize for the outstanding string player of the year. He went on to win major prizes, notably the Bromsgrove and Watford Music Festivals in England, the Yehudi Menuhin Award from the Sudborough Foundation, KPMG/Martin Musical Scholarship (UK),Cziffra Foundation competition (France), Web Concert Hall Competition (USA), Barthel Prize from the Concordia Foundation.
Upon graduation from the RCM Yuri was awarded the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Scholarship for postgraduate studies there. He completed his training with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School of Music and Vasko Vassiliev at Trinity College of Music whilst receiving further artistic guidance from eminent musicians such as Shlomo Mintz, Abram Shtern, Igor Oistrakh, Edward Grach, Sergei Fatkulline, Sylvia Rosenberg and Valentin Berlinsky.
Read Less