Arkady Futer was a Soviet and Russian musician, violinist, and music teacher. Born in Moscow on September 6, 1932, he became concertmaster of the Moscow Virtuosi orchestra from 1979 to 2000, served as concertmaster of the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra under Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and later became concertmaster of the Oviedo Symphony Orchestra in Spain.
From 1943 to 1951, Futer studied string performance at the Moscow State Conservatory with the teacher Yuri Yankelevich. In 1952 he worked as a concertmaster with the Radio and Television Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra and subsequently with the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic.
In 1979, Futer was appointed concertmaster in the original ensemble of the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. He remained with the orchestra from its founding until 2000. When the Oviedo city authorities established the Oviedo Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in 2001, he served as its first violin until the end of his life.
Futer gave master classes in Russia and abroad, including in Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Poland, and Turkey. From 2004 to 2005, he was a jury member at various competitions in Boston, and he chaired the violin category jury at the International Tchaikovsky Competition as well as serving as permanent chair of the jury of the All-Russian Violinists' Competition.
His awards included prizes at the All-Russian Violinists' Competition in 1959, the All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians in 1960, the George Enescu International Violin Competition in Bucharest in 1961, and the Long–Thibaud International Competition in Paris in 1967. He was named Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1987 and People's Artist of the Russian Federation in 1998, and received the Order of Friendship in 2007.
Futer died in Oviedo on September 5, 2011. He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.