Born in St Petersburg in 1975, Dmitri Makhtin started his musical education at the age of 4 with his parents, both professional violinists at the St Peterburg Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1981 he entered the Conservatory for highly talented children. In 1989 he won the prize of the National Competition for Young Violinists in Novossibirsk, Russia.
In 1990, he obtained a scholarship from the Young Musicians' Foundation in the USA and gave his first recitals in New-York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Dallas.
From 1992 to 1995 he continued his musical education with professors P.Hirshborn and H.Krebbers. He won the following international competitions : Kloster Schontal violin competition, Premio Paganini and Louis Spohr, Tibor Varga, Montréal, Sibelius and Pretoria.
Dmitri Makhtin made his French debut in Paris in 1997 with Maestro Svetlanov and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, then, his American debut in 1998, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Maestro Slatkin. From then on, he appeared with orchestras such as : Het Residentie, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, St Petersburg Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras, Sydney Radio and TV Orchestras, Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, Montpellier National Orchestra, New Sinfonietta Amsterdam, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Solistes Européens du Luxembourg and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
He performed with conductors such as Evgeny Svetlanov, Leonard Slatkin, James de Priest, Sakari Oramo, Jiri Belohlavek, Alexander Dmitriev, Jerzy Semkow, Yuri Temirkanov, Nikolaï Alexeev, Jean-Claude Casadesus.
An active chamber music player, he has performed in prestigious festivals such as the Arts Square in St Petersburg, Lisbonne, Folles Journées de Nantes, Roque d’Anthéron , Musique en Côte Basque, Salzburg and Festival de Saint-Denis.
The Trio Boris Berezovsky, Dmitri Makhtin, Alexander Kniazev, recorded a DVD of Tchaïkovsky's Pieces for piano, violin and cello and Trio Elégiaque “A La mémoire d’un grand artiste” presented on ARTE TV Channel and NHK in Japan. They received for this DVD the 4-star Diapason award.
The CD (Warner Classics International) with B.Berezovsky and A.Kniazev, Chostakovitch's Trio n°2 and Rachmaninov's Trio Elégiaque n°2 received several highest awards like the Choc de la Musique in France, Gramophone in England, Echo Classic in Germany.
A Mendelssohn trios with A.Kniazev and B.Berezovsky were released and received the « Echo » award.
His last disc recorded for Lontano is a selection of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas.
In 2011, Dmitri Makhtin was invited for a tour with the Orchestre National de Lille and Maestro Casadesus for the 25th anniversary of the orchestra, concerts at the Folle Journée de Nantes, and the Folle Journée Tokyo… He was also invited by Vadim Repin to play at his Carte Blanche.
His forthcoming projects include concerts at Folles Journées de Nantes, Tokyo, in Anvers with Andrei Korobeinikov, Moments Musicaux de La Baule with Boris Berezovsky, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Dallas Symphony Orchestra with Jaap van Sweden.