Yuriy Rakevich was born in Leningrad and started his music studies at the age of 6 with I. Budylina. He went on to study at the Leningrad Special Music School and the Music College of the city with M. Gantvarg and A. Reznikovsky in Music College. Yuriy was accepted into the Moscow Conservatory at 18 and studied with B. Belenky, as well as took lessons with Z. Bronn in Italy and M. Lowe in the United States.

Yuriy has performed in various violin recitals and as a concertmaster in orchestras around the world, including Mozart Nº 5 and Tchaikovsky in Mexico, and Sibelius in the old USSR. He also participated in the II Concurso Internacional de Violino de Henryk Szeryng and played at recitals in Germany with Alexander Bloch. Yuriy is a former member of the Tchaikovsky Quartet in Mexico.

He has also worked as an assistant concertmaster for the Maliy’s Symphony Orchestra and the New Hampshire Symphony in the US and first concertmaster for in the de Orchestra Opera and Ballet de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Yuriy was a guest spalla for the Adelaid Symphony Orchestra in Australia.

Currently, Yuriy has been an associate concertmaster for over 26 years with OSESP and is also a member of the Glazunov Quartet. He plays a violin made by French Luthier C. A. Miremont in 1883.