Sergey Ostrovsky was born in 1975 in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) to a family of musicians, began playing violin at the age of six, and studied with David Lapidus as his first teacher. He made his first concert appearances at the age of eight, and performed for the first time with a symphony orchestra at the age of thirteen.

He studied with Lazar Gantman and Yury Gluchovsky at the Gorky Conservatory, and in 1991 moved to Israel with his family and continued his studies with Yair Kless and Irina Svetlova at the Rubin Academy, Tel Aviv. In 1996 he founded the Aviv Quartet, which moved to Europe in order to study with the members of the Alban Berg Quartet at the Cologne Hochschule (1998–2000), and with members of the Daniel Quartet at the Rotterdam Conservatory, where Ostrovsky completed his bachelor degree diploma with Natalia Morozova in 2000, and his master degree diploma at the Amsterdam Conservatory with Alexander Kerr in 2002. He participated in masterclasses with Isaac Stern, Hermann Krebbers, Dorothy Delay, Ivry Gitlis, Ida Haendel and has served since 2007 as first concertmaster of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, and from 2009 has taught at the Geneva Conservatory Haute Ecole de Musique.

A winner of various international awards and with appearances in major concert halls throughout the world, Sergey Ostrovsky plays a 1716 Giovanni Grancino violin, purchased with the generous support of Mr James Mayer and the Tzfonot Tarbut nonprofit organization for support of the arts in Israel.