Composer and producer Gabriel Prokofiev has been at the forefront of efforts to develop fusions between classical forms and contemporary popular electronic styles, writing concertos for, among other instruments, turntables and orchestra. He has attracted top-notch collaborators from the classical, popular, and jazz worlds.

Prokofiev was born on January 6, 1975, in London. Although he does not emphasize the fact in his publicity material, he is the grandson of composer Sergei Prokofiev. His father was the artist Oleg Prokofiev; his mother, Frances Child, was English. Prokofiev's childhood was musical: he studied piano, horn, and trumpet, and sang choral music, but he resisted pressure to embark on a classical career, instead, joining a pop band at age ten and writing songs for it. He also became familiar with electronic and hip-hop production techniques and was active as a producer for several years. He founded an electronic group called Spectrum and performed with it as a DJ under the name Gabriel Olegavich. Prokofiev attended Birmingham and York Universities, studying electroacoustic music, earning bachelor's and master's degrees.

In 1998, Prokofiev won the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, and some of his early works hewed close to the classical tradition. His String Quartet of 2003 was written for the Elysian Quartet, and he has written several more works in the quartet genre. However, when Prokofiev released a recording of the quartet on his own label, Nonclassical, he included remixes. Nonclassical was not only a record label but also a London club night featuring experiments in performing classical or classical-influenced music in a nontraditional venue. The remix procedure has been featured in several of Prokofiev's works, including an "orchestral remix" of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (2011), commissioned by the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, France, and performed sold-out concert halls in Angers and Nantes. As Prokofiev's fame spread, he began to collaborate with prominent artists on both sides of the classical/pop divide. His Violin Concerto was performed by Daniel Hope and the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic at the BBC Proms in 2014, and his Saxophone Concerto, performed by jazzman Branford Marsalis, was jointly commissioned by the Naples Philharmonic and the Detroit Symphony in 2017. Prokofiev's music has been performed by leading symphony orchestras in several countries, including the Seattle Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and the BBC Philharmonic. He has often collaborated with choreographers and ballet companies, composing a work for solo violin & solo dancer for the Rambert Dance Company. Prokofiev has sometimes recorded for companies other than Nonclassical, releasing the album Beethoven Reimagined with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Yaniv Segal in 2020. ~ James Manheim, Rovi