Maxim Vengerov

Vengerov moved to Israel with his family in 1990, continuing his studies at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. In 2006, he founded the Musicians of Tomorrow school in northern Israel. His career also includes contributions as a conductor and educator, serving as the first chief conductor of the Menuhin Festival Gstaad Orchestra and holding professorships at institutions like the Royal College of Music in London. He has received numerous awards, including a Grammy and multiple Echo Music Prizes, and plays on the 1727 "ex-Kreutzer" Stradivarius violin.

Vengerov was born in Novosibirsk, the only child of Aleksandr and Larisa Borisovna, oboist and orphanage children's choir director respectively, and is Jewish. He sang in his mother's choir from the age of three. He began studying the violin at age five with Galina Turchaninova. Upon meeting him, she asked: "Do you have strength in these hands?" The five-year-old punched her in the stomach as hard as he could. He said years later: "Fortunately, she was in a good mood that day, and she accepted me as a student."

Lessons went badly at first. Turchaninova was very strict. At one point, Vengerov stubbornly refused to play for her for five straight lessons. She told his mother that she was dismissing him as a student. His mother began to cry, and upon seeing that, Vengerov picked up his violin and played 17 assigned pieces from memory without interruption. Even though he had refused to play at his lessons, he had been practicing. Turchaninova agreed to continue his lessons, saying: "Very well. A violinist like Maxim is born only once in a hundred years."