Pavel Leonidovich Kogan is a Russian violinist and conductor who currently leads the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Pavel Kogan's career has spanned over 40 years and five continents and has led him to becoming one of the most respected and widely known Russian conductors of our time. In 2011 Kogan's name went into the list of ten greatest conductors of the 20th century, made by an authoritative British classical TV channel. He was born into a distinguished musical family ? his parents are legendary violinists Leonid Kogan and Elizaveta Gilels and his uncle is the inimitable pianist Emil Gilels. From an early age Kogan?s artistic development was divided between conducting and violin. He was granted special permission to study both disciplines at the same time which was an extreme rarity in the Soviet Union. In 1970 eighteen-year-old Pavel Kogan, a violin pupil of Yuri Yankelevich at the Moscow Conservatory, won 1st prize in the Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki. Thereafter he appeared regularly as a violinist in concerts around the world. 

June 6th, 1952 in Moscow (Age 71)