Mikhail Gantvarg is a Soviet and Russian violinist, teacher, and professor. He was born on 25 February 1947 in Leningrad. He was named People's Artist of Russia in 2004.
He graduated from the ten-year music school, now the secondary specialized music school-lyceum affiliated with the Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory. At the age of eleven, he made his debut performing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with the conservatory orchestra. He studied at the Leningrad Conservatory with Mikhail Waiman and subsequently completed an assistantship-internship in Waiman's class.
Gantvarg was a prizewinner at the Niccolò Paganini International Violin Competition in 1967 and at the All-Union Violin Competition in 1969. From 1975 to 1987, he served as concertmaster of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Leningrad Philharmonic.
In 1987, he founded the chamber ensemble St. Petersburg Soloists and became its artistic director. He teaches at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he has been a professor and, from 2007, headed the Violin and Viola Department. He served as rector of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory from 2011 to 2015.
He has recorded about forty CDs with Russian and international companies. These recordings include all of Mozart's violin and piano concertos, instrumental cycles by Vivaldi, and violin concertos by Shostakovich, Sibelius, Haydn, and Bach.
Among his honors are the title Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, awarded in 1991, and an honorary diploma from the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg in 2007 for his contribution to the development of culture and the arts in the city and for the twentieth anniversary of the St. Petersburg Soloists.