Mikhail Ovrutsky is first prize winner at numerous international music competitions including the Pablo Sarasate Competition in Pamplona, the Liana Issakadze Competition in St. Petersburg, the Johansen Competition in Washington, the UNISA Competition in Pretoria, as well as laureate of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Recommended by Anne-Sophie Mutter he won the Europäische Förderpreis of the Pro Europa Foundation in 2006.

Born into a music family in Moscow in 1980, he began playing the violin at the age of five under Zoya Makhtina at a special school for musically gifted children. His studies subsequently took him to Albert Markow at the Manhattan School of Music, Dorothy Delay at the Julliard School in New York, Yumi Scott and Victor Danchenko at the Curtis Institute of Music and Zakhar Bron at the Musikhochschule Köln. As of 2005 he is teaching there as assistant in the class of Professor Bron.

Mikhail Ovrutsky has performed worldwide with leading orchestras and conductors including Philadelphia Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Orchestra Moscow under Vladimir Fedoseyev, Trondheim Soloists, London Symphony Orchestra, the Brussels Philharmonic under Yoel Levi and the Marinsky Orchestra St. Petersburg under Valery Gergiev, State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation under Mark Gorenstein, Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra under Toshiyuki Shimada or Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra under Jorma Panula, Prague Radio Orchestra under Alexander Vedernikov, Helsinki Philharmonic under Leif Segerstam, Basel Symphony Orchestra under Andrés Orozco-Estrada, BBC Philharmonic and WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under Pietari Inkinen, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Dmitrij Kitajenko, Wiener Symphoniker and the Filarmonica della Scala.

He has performed as a soloist and chamber music musician at numerous festivals, including the Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus, the Kronberg Acedamy “ Chamber Music Connects the World”, where he performed together with Yuri Bashmet and Menahem Pressler. In 2008 he celebrated his debut at Lucerne Festival with a solo-recital and a concert with Anne-Sophie Mutter, whose foundation supports him since 2004.

Mikhail Ovrutsky has recorded CDs for Warner Classics and Naxos. In 2006 he became a member of the Beethoven Trio Bonn. A year later their debut-CD with music of Beethoven and Mendelssohn was released by the record label Antes Edition.

He plays a violin by Gioffredo Cappa, Turin ca. 1700.