Yuri Bondarev, born in St. Petersburg, switched to the viola after studying violin at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin and was accepted into Prof Tatjana Masurenko’s class at the Leipzig Academy of Music, where he also took his concert exam. Regular solo and chamber music performances have taken him to Austria, Italy, France, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Japan. He has played in various ensembles, including the Vienna Musikverein, the Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Milan Conservatory, the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Tonhalle Düsseldorf.
He gained his first important orchestral experience with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic with conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Kurt Masur, Daniel Harding, Dmitrij Kitajenko, Christopher Hogwood, Herbert Blomstedt and others. He has played as deputy principal viola with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra since 2009.
He has been teaching violin, viola and chamber music at the Anton Rubinstein International Music Academy in Düsseldorf since 2012.
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