Grigori Zhislin was born in St Petersburg, and graduated from Moscow Conservatory as a pupil of Yuri Yankelevitch. At the age of 22 he won first prize in the Paganini Competition, and the Silver Medal in the Queen Elizabeth Competition, with a flourishing international career. His repertoire includes over one hundred concertos for violin and viola, and numerous recital and chamber music programmes ranging from Baroque to contemporary music. He has appeared as a soloist with leading Russian and international orchestras, collaborating with the most distinguished conductors. He has cooperated closely with such composers as Schnittke, Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Krzysztof Penderecki, and gave the first performance in Russia of Penderecki’s Violin Concerto. The two formed a close relationship and together they have recorded all of Penderecki’s violin and viola works. It was in 1983, at Penderecki’s request, that Zhislin began to play the viola, in order to give the first European performance of Penderecki’s Viola Concerto, and Penderecki also dedicated his Cadenza per Viola Solo to him. Grigori Zhislin is Professor of Violin and Viola at the Royal College of Music in London. He is also visiting professor in Finland, Norway and Poland, and gives master-classes in Germany, the former Yugoslavia and the United States.