Sergei Stadler is a Russian musician who was born in Saint Petersburg on May 20, 1962. He studied the violin with David Oistrakh and Leonid Kogan and took the first prize and gold medal in the 1982 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He is also a laureate of the Jacques Thibaud competition in Paris, where he won the Grand Prize in 1980. He has performed as soloist with the London Philharmonic, the Russian National Symphony, and the Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestras, collaborating with world famous conductors, including Kurt Masur, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Mariss Jansons, Evgeny Svetlanov and Yuri Temirkanov. Sergei Stadler is now Artistic Director of the Hermitage Musical Academy in St Petersburg as well as Artistic Director of the State Theatre of Opera and Ballet of the St Petersburg Conser