Boris Kuschnir was born in Kiev in 1948 and studied the violin at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire with Boris Belenky and chamber music with Valentin Berlinsky of the Borodin Quartet. His many encounters with Dmitri Shostakovich and David Oistrach (with whom he also studied), had a lasting influence on his artistic development.

He has won numerous prizes at international violin and chamber music competitions (Paris, Belgrade, Sion, Trapani, Bratislava, Florence, Trieste, Hamburg). In 1970 he founded the Moscow String Quartet and remained a member until 1979.

He became an Austrian citizen in 1982, a Professor at the Conservatoire Vienna Private University in 1984 and also a Professor at the University of Music in Graz in 1999. His reputation as a teacher won international recognition with the recent outstanding success of his pupils, Julian Rachlin (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, Amsterdam, 1988), Nikolaj Znaider (1st Prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, Brussels, 1997), Lidia Baich (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, 1998), Dalibor Karvay (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, Berlin 2002; 1. Prize International Tibor Varga Competition, Switzerland 2003; 1. Prize David Oistrakh Competition, Moscow 2008), Alexandra Soumm (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, Lucerne 2004), Kirill Kobantschenko, Tibor Kovac, Eugeni Andrussenko (all violinists at the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra), Melina Mandozzi (Guest leader at the London Symphony Orchestra) and Vahid Khadem-Missagh (Leader of the Niederösterreichische Tonkünstler Orchestra). At the same time he constantly gives masterclasses and is a jury member of various international music competitions (such as Quenn Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Nicolo Paganini Competition in Genua, Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris, Tibor Varga Competition in Switzerland, Michael Hill Competition in New Zealand, Eurovision Competition, David Oistrakh Competition in Moscow).

In 1984 Boris Kuschnir founded the Wiener Schubert Trio which received many prestigious awards, among them the Mozart Interpretationspreis 1988 and the Prize of the Ernst von Siemens foundation 1990. Boris Kuschnir played as a soloist and a chamber musician in some of the world's most illustrious venues: the Musikverein Vienna, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, La Fenice in Venice, the Wigmore Hall London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, as well as in the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire Moscow and the Ishibashi Memorial Hall in Tokyo. He has taken part in numerous festivals such as Salzburger Festspiele, Gidon Kremer's Lockenhaus Festival, Wiener Festwochen, Besançon, Wahington, Spoleto, Naples, Stresa, Bregenzer Festspiele, Meklenburg-Vorpommen, Swiatoslaw Richter Winterfestival/Moscow, Verbier Festival/Switzerland.

Boris Kuschnir appears with such illustrious partners as L. Leonskaja, B. Berezovsky, E. Bashkirova, L. O. Andsnes, J. Rachlin, N. Znaider, M. Vengerov, D. Sitkovetsky, R. Capucon, J. Bashmet, G. Caussé, N. Imai, B. Pergamenschikow, S. Isserlis, G. Capucon, V. Hagen (Hagen Quartet), H. Beyerle, T. Kakuska, V. Erben (Alban Berg Quartet) and M. Kopelman (Borodin Quartet).

Both as soloist and chamber musician Boris Kuschnir made numerous recordings, notably the complete Mozart piano trios for EMI, which were released in the Mozart year of 1991.

In 1993 he founded the Vienna Brahms Trio which made their highly acclaimed debut at the Gidon Kremer's Lockenhaus Festival in Austria. In 1996, the Trio won First Prize at the 9th International Chamber Music Competition in Illzach, France. Their recording of Schumann's complete works for Piano trio was released on the Naxos label in 1999.

In 2003 he was co-founder of the Kopelman quartet with which he is giving concert all over the world since.

Boris Kuschnir was awarded the use of a Stradivarius violin (La Rouse Boughton, 1703) by the Austrian National Bank in recognition of his services to music.