Gawriloff was born in
Leipzig and received his first violin lessons from his father Yordan Gavriloff, who was a violinist in the
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. He then studied with
Walther Davisson,
Gustav Havemann, and Martin Kovacz, the last of whom had been a pupil of
David Oistrakh and
Jenő Hubay. After completing his formal education, Gawriloff won many international awards for his performances, including a prize at the
Paganini Competition and the Kulturförderpreis of the City of Nuremberg. At various times, he has served as
concertmaster with the
Dresden Philharmonic, the
Berlin Philharmonic, the
Berlin Radio Symphony, the
Frankfurt Opera, and the
Hamburg Symphony. As a soloist, Gawriloff has played with many prestigious orchestras around the world, led by such conductors as
Georg Solti,
Pierre Boulez,
Christoph von Dohnányi,
Eliahu Inbal,
Michael Gielen,
Esa-Pekka Salonen,
Markus Stenz,
Peter Eötvös,
Gary Bertini, and
Alfred Schnittke. He completed a well received tour of Southern Africa in 1974. In 1992, in collaboration with the
Ensemble Modern, Gawriloff gave the premiere of
György Ligeti's
Violin Concerto, which the composer had dedicated to him. The American premiere took place the next year with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen. Gawriloff performed the concerto another seventy times in the following decade. In his teaching career, Gawriloff took his first post in Nuremberg, before becoming a professor at the
Musikakademie Detmold in 1966 and going on to the
Folkwangschule in Essen in 1969. He succeeded
Max Rostal as Professor at the
Hochschule für Musik Köln in 1982, remaining there until 1996. ==External links==