Andrei Korsakov was a Soviet violinist, born on 7 May 1946 in Moscow. His father, Boris Korsakov, was a soloist and concertmaster of the All-Union Radio and Television Grand Symphony Orchestra and an Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic; his mother was a pianist.
He studied at the Central Music School, completed compulsory service in the Soviet Army, and graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1969, where he studied with Boris Belenky. He then undertook postgraduate study with Leonid Kogan, completing it in 1971. That same year, he became a soloist of the Moscow Philharmonic.
Korsakov won prizes at major international competitions: third prize at the Paganini Competition in Genoa in 1965, third prize at the Montreal performers' competition in 1966, second prize at the Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris in 1967, first prize at the All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians in Riga in 1970, fifth prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1970, and second prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1971. He was named an Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1981 and a People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1990.
He performed extensively in concert and toured internationally, giving first performances of a number of works by Russian composers. His repertoire included music by Alexander Alyabyev, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Isaac Albéniz and Fritz Kreisler; violin concertos by Johannes Brahms, Max Bruch, Henryk Wieniawski, Alexander Glazunov, Felix Mendelssohn, Niccolò Paganini and Jean Sibelius; and violin sonatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, Edvard Grieg and Gaetano Donizetti. Critics praised the brilliance, strength, breadth, expressiveness, virtuosity and technical freedom of his playing.
From 1976, Korsakov founded and led the Moscow Philharmonic's Concertino ensemble. With the group he performed chiefly arrangements for string orchestra, including works by Kreisler, Franz Lehár's Serenade, Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, Aram Khachaturian's Sabre Dance from the ballet Gayane, and other pieces. Concertino also made original arrangements and prepared and gave the first performances of string quartets by Valery Gavrilin.
Korsakov taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1971; his students included Marina Uvarova of the Nohr Quartet. In 1990 he became head of the State Academic Chamber Orchestra of Russia, leading it for several months. He died of a stroke in Moscow on 22 January 1991 and was buried at Vagankovo Cemetery. Since 1992, a competition for young violinists, violists and cellists in Tver has borne his name.