Gidon Kremer was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1947 into a family of violinists and began playing at age four. He studied at the Riga School of Music and, from 1965, with David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory, going on to win prizes at the Queen Elisabeth Competition (1967), the Montreal International Violin Competition (1969), the Paganini Competition (1969), and first prize at the 1970 Tchaikovsky Competition.

Kremer made his Western debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1970 and has since become renowned both as a virtuoso and as a champion of contemporary composers such as Sofia Gubaidulina, who dedicated works to him. He founded the Lockenhaus chamber music festival (1981) and the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra (1997), won a Grammy Award in 2002, and has received major honors including the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (1982) and the Praemium Imperiale (2016).

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gidon_Kremer