Cellist Ivan Monighetti has had flourishing careers in both eastern and western Europe. He has also been active as a conductor and an educator.

Monighetti was born on August 3, 1948, in Riga, Latvia, then part of the Soviet Union. Monighetti attended the Moscow Conservatory, where he was the last student of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich prior to the latter's departure from the Soviet Union. In 1974, Monighetti took a top prize at the Moscow Tchaikovsky International Competition, and that launched him into an international career. At first, his appearances were mostly in the Communist world, but several key appearances brought him a wider reputation. These included a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with composer Krzysztof Penderecki conducting (Penderecki became a major backer of the young cellist's career) and one with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under conductor Kurt Masur.

Monighetti went on to appear as a soloist with a variety of orchestras, including the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal, under conductor Muhai Tang and the Moscow Philharmonic with Rostropovich conducting. In 1995, he made his recording debut on the Musikszene Schweiz label with an album of works by Theodor Fröhlich, and he went on to record for a variety of labels that included Wergo, Berlin Classics, and Orfeo. Monighetti appeared at music festivals on multiple continents, including the Ravinia Festival outside Chicago, the Santa Fe Music Festival, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Germany. Monighetti has been known for his work in both early music and contemporary music. He was a founding director of the Moscow Early Music Festival at a time when historical performance was a rarity in Russia, and he formed the Camerata Boccherini orchestra, touring with the group in several European countries.

Monighetti worked on new music with such prominent composers as Penderecki, Iannis Xenakis, Henri Dutilleux, and Tan Dun, and several works he commissioned have become part of the standard cello repertory. Beginning with a 1998 appearance at the English Haydn Festival, Monighetti has been active as a conductor in his later years. He is a professor at the Musik-Akademie Basel in Switzerland and has also taught at the Moscow Conservatory and the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid. Monighetti appeared on a recording of Valentin Silvestrov's Cello Sonata on the Erato label with pianist Alexei Lubimov, which was originally made in 1992 and reissued in 2014 and 2022. ~ James Manheim, Rovi