In 2011 Pavel  Kogan was included into the list of the 10 greatest conductors of the 20th century, according to the British television channel Classical TV. A world-famous violinist and conductor, Pavel Kogan is the art director and chief conductor of the Moscow State Academic Symphony Orchestra.
Pavel Kogan was born into a musical family: his parents are outstanding violinists Leonid Kogan and Elizaveta Gilels, and his uncle is pianist Emil Gilels. From early childhood the boy was trained in playing the violin and conductorship. He received a special permit to major in both specialties in the Moscow Conservatory at the same time, which was a very rare case in the Soviet Union.
In 1970, eighteen-year-old Pavel Kogan won the First Prize at the Sibelius International Violin Competition in Helsinki. The victory propelled his career as a violinist both in the Soviet Union and abroad. In 2010, the panel of judges chose the best winner in the history of the competition, and it was Pavel Kogan, according to the unanimous decision of the jury.
Pavel Kogan made his debut as a conductor with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the USSR in 1972. In the following years he conducted the main Soviet orchestras both in this country and in concert tours abroad.
The Bolshoi Theater opened its 1988-1989 season with Verdi’s opera La Traviata staged by Pavel Kogan, and in the same year he headed the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra.
Since 1989, Kogan has been the art director and principal conductor of the Moscow State Academic Symphony Orchestra (MGASO). From 1998 to 2005, simultaneously with his work at MGASO, Pavel Kogan served as Principal Guest Conductor at the Utah Symphony Orchestra (USA, Salt Lake City).
Since the very beginning of his career to the present day, he has performed on all five continents with the best orchestras, including the Honored Staff of Russia, the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, symphony orchestras of Munich, Helsinki, Luxembourg and Los Angeles, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, National Orchestra of Belgium, Radio and Television Orchestra of Spain, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, Roman Switzerland Orchestra, the National Orchestra of France, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and the National Orchestra of the Capitol of Toulouse.
Numerous music recordings have been made by Pavel Kogan with MGASO and other orchestras. Rakhmaninov's cycle in the interpretation of Pavel Kogan (Symphonies 1, 2, and 3, The Island of the Dead, Vocalise and Scherzo) was called “captivating, true Rachmaninoff ... alive, tremulous and exciting" in the Gramophone magazine.
For the performance of all the symphonies and vocal-symphonic compositions by Mahler the master was conferred the State Award of Russia. He is the People's Artist of Russia, an active member of the Russian Academy of Arts, a member of the Order of Merit to the Fatherland, the Order of Arts and Literature, and other Russian and international awards.