Andrey Baranov
is winner of the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition 2012. He is also a winner of the Benjamin Britten and Henri Marteau International Violin Competitions, and a prizewinner of more than twenty other international competitions including Indianapolis, Seoul, Sendai, Liana Isakadze, David Oistrakh and Paganini (Moscow). He is the first violinist and founding member of the David Oistrakh String Quartet, an outstanding ensemble established in 2012.

Born in Saint Petersburg in 1986 into a family of musicians, Andrey Baranov began playing the violin at the age of five. He attended the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Saint Petersburg and the Conservatoire de Lausanne. He studied with Lev Ivaschenko, Vladimir Ovcharek and Pierre Amoyal.

Since making his major debut in 2005 at the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic hall under Vasily Petrenko and the Philharmonic Orchestra, he has performed in renowned venues throughout the world including the Bozar Brussels, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Großer Saal Mozarteum Salzburg, Cadogan Hall London, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Konzerthaus Berlin, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Mariinsky Concert Hall and Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Hall.

Andrey Baranov has already appeared with leading international orchestras including the Vienna Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Belgium, MusicAeterna, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Sendai Philharmonic, Royal Phiharmonic London, and SWR Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra under conductors Teodor Currentzis, Vasily Petrenko, Vladimir Fedoseev, Michel Tabachnik, Walter Weller, Emmanuel Krivine, Yury Temirkanov, Kent Nagano, Thomas Sanderling, Alexander Vedernikov among others.

As a chamber musician, he has performed alongside such artists as Martha Argerich, Julian Rachlin, Boris Andrianov, Pierre Amoyal, Eliso Virsaladze, Liana Isakadze, Alexander Buzlov, Daniel Austrich.

Aged only 23 Andrey was appointed teaching assistant to Pierre Amoyal at the Conservatoire de Lausanne and has since been in demand as a teacher at many international masterclasses. He has been invited to institutions in Bangkok, Chicago, Riga, Vilnius, Stockholm, Moscow, Manchester and elsewhere.

Maria Baranova
Born in 1988 into a family of musicians, Maria Baranova began her piano studies at the age of five. In 2007, she graduated from the Special Music School at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Saint Petersburg.

At the age of ten, she began to play with her brother Andrey Baranov. In 2000 she was a laureate of the All Russian Mazur Competition and began performing all over Europe as a soloist and with different ensembles. In 2008 Maria Baranova was a laureate of the 10th Maria Yudina International Music Competition and obtained the Prize for the Best Duet at the Academy of Lausanne. She was prize-winner with Andrey Baranov in the International Duo Competition in Katrineholm (Sweden) in 2010, and won 2nd prize at the same competition in 2014.

From 2010 until June 2015 she was a student of the Conservatory of Lausanne (HEMU) where she obtained her two master degrees under Professors Marc Pantillon (accompaniment) and Christian Favre (piano). Since 2015 she has been a student at the Hochschule der Künste Bern (Switzerland).