Leonidas Kavakos is among the 10 artists who are nominated for Artist of the Year Award 2014 from the prestigious Gramophone.

Leonidas Kavakos is recognised across the world as a violinist and artist of rare quality, known at the highest level for his virtuosity, superb musicianship and the integrity of his playing.  The 10 artists nominated for the coveted Gramophone Artist of the Year Award 2014 are: Leonidas Kavakos, Iestyn Davies, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Renaud Capuçon, Mariss Jansons, Mahan Esfahani, Alisa Weilerstein, Alina Ibragimova, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Vasily Petrenko.

Born in Athens into a musical family, Kavakos’s first steps as a violinist were guided by his parents. He studied at the Hellenic Conservatory with Stelios Kafantaris, one of the three important mentors in his life, together with Josef Gingold and Ferenc Rados.

Kavakos has had quite a year, performing on many of the world’s great stages and with the greatest orchestras to universal acclaim. He recorded Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra for Decca (‘evidence of abundant temperament and passion’ according to Duncan Druce last December) and made a superb set, with Yuja Wang at the piano, of the Brahms sonatas – an Editor’s Choice this month. Increasingly seen with a baton in hand, Kavakos has come a long way since taking Gramophone’s Concerto Award back in 1991 for the Sibelius Violin Concerto in its original version for BIS.