Oleg Kaskiv

Oleg Kaskiv was born in 1978 in the small Ukrainian village Kremenetz into a family of musicians. He began playing violin at the age of 7 under the guidance of his violinists parents and later entered M.Lysenko National Academy of Music in Lviv.

In 1996, Oleg won a scholarship to study in Switzerland at the famous “International Menuhin Music Academy” (IMMA), which was founded by Lord Yehudi Menuhin in 1977. At the Academy, Oleg's great mentor was Professor Alberto Lysy, who got his education directly from Lord Yehudi Menuhin and was his only pupil. Therefore the tradition of the great romantic violin playing was passed on to Oleg.

Today, Oleg Kaskiv is a soloist and main violin professor at the IMMA. As a soloist, Oleg Kaskiv regularly performs with great success in his native country with the National Symphony of Ukraine, Odessa Philharmonic and Lviv Philharmonic Symphony Orchestras and worldwide: with the Camerata Lysy, Camerata de Lausanne, Symphonisches Orchester Zürich, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden.

He is a laureate of many prestigious violin competitions such as Queen Elisabeth International Music

Competition (Belgium); International Oistrakh Competition (Ukraine); International Kotorovych Violin

Competition (Ukraine), International Spohr Competition (Germany); International Montreal Competition

(Canada); International Premio Lipizer (Italy), International Niredgazi Violin Competition (Japan),

International Dvarionas Violin Competition (Lithuania) and International Molinari Competition

(Switzerland).

He plays a violin from Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, one of the greatest violinmakers in the music history, which is lent to him to recognize his high class as a violinist and a musician.