Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Dima (Dmytro) Tkachenko started playing the violin and piano before the age of 6. He studied at Lysenko Music School and graduated in 1995 to the National Music Academy of Ukraine (former Kyiv Conservatoire) under Bogodar Kotorovych and Jaroslava Rivniak. In 1998 he was invited to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Yfrah Neaman. In 2002 Dima was made a Fellow of the Guildhall School and recently has been working with Krzysztof Smietana and David Takeno.

Dima Tkachenko was awarded the Guildhall School Concert Recital Diploma (Premier Prix) in 1999. He has been a prize-winner at several international violin competitions including the Carl Nielsen Competition (Odense, Denmark, 2000), the Lysenko Competition (Kyiv, Ukraine, 1997), the Wronski Solo Violin Competition (Warsaw, Poland, 1997), the Pierre Lantier Competition (Paris, 1995).

His major UK concert appearances include performances at London’s South Bank Centre, Wigmore Hall and Barbican Hall. In Ukraine he has performed at all major venues and with all major orchestras, returning regularly to play and tour with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Kyiv Philharmonic Orchestra (some of the future appearances with the Kyiv Philharmonic Orchestra include Berg Concerto in April 2006, and with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in autumn 2006 he will present a series "Five major violin concertos" performing concerti by Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Bartok Second.

He has also toured extensively throughout Europe (Belarus, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Switzerland), Japan, China and the USA.

His recent performances include Lucerne Festival, Britten Festival Kyiv, Kyiv Festival 2005, Festival “Stars of the Planet” in Yalta, the special concert for the inauguration of Victor Yuschenko as Ukrainian President in Kyiv in January 2005, world premieres of Yevhen Stankovych’s First Violin Concerto “Nostalgic Reveries” in Kyiv Philharmonia and Oleg Bezborodko’s "Cossack on the Danube Fantasy" in Amstelkerk in Amsterdam, also Ukrainian premieres of Edmund Rubbra, Britten and Nielsen Violin Concertos, all with the National Symphony Orchestra. His upcoming engagements during autumn 2005 include a performance within celebrations of 60th anniversary of the UN in New York, Brahms Violin Concerto and Ukrainian premiere of Oleg Bezborodko’s "Cossack on the Danube Fantasy" with Crimean Symphony Orchestra, world premiere of Yevhen Stankovych’s Second Violin Concerto in Kyiv, Wigmore Hall recital “William Leonard Reed tribute concert” in London.

Dima Tkachenko is also the founder and Artistic Director of the Benjamin Britten International Violin Competition in London and the founder of the Kyiv Festival in Ukraine.