Mikhail Simonyan was born in Novosibirsk in 1985. He started learning violin at the age of five. By 1997, the young talent received his first award at Virtuoso-2000 International Young Violinists Competition, followed by Priznanie International Award in 1998 and a Grand Prix in Siberia’s Young Violinists Contest and an award in Yehudi Menuhin International Contest at Boulogne-sur-Mer the year after that. He played his first sol concert at New York’s Lincoln Center at the age of 13, but he gained international fame in 2000, when the young violinist debuted at Carnegie Hall. In spring 2001, Leonard Slatkin invited him to perform with the US National Symphony Orchestra at the 30th anniversary of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; in 2002 he entertained the guests at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland by Yehudi Menuhin’s invitation. In 1999 Mikhail Simonyan received a Salon de Virtuosi grant covering his tuition at Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, PA.

Currently Mikhail spends most of his time touring Russia and abroad. He has been working with such directors as Valery Gergiev, Mikhail Pletnev, Kristjan Järvi, Leonard Slatking; performing at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Concertgebouw, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatorium and the Grand Hall of Saint Petersburg Philharmonic; playing with the best orchestras, including Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Theater, and Russian National Orchestra. In 2014-2015 he headed Kaluga Youth Symphony Orchestra. He plays a Stradivari violin. Mikhail Simonyan has been the President of Open Sea Cultural and Educational Programs Foundation since 2015.