Born in Kharkov, Leonid Kerbel began violin at four with Prof. Kozlovicher, then studied in Moscow with Prof. Yankilevich, and after immigrating to Israel at eleven continued with Prof. Yair Kless.

He is the founder, President and Artistic Director of the Musica Mundi International Chamber Music Course and Festival (est. 1999) and the Musica Mundi School in Belgium (est. 2018), a full academic and professional programme for highly talented musicians aged 10 to 18. Since 2014 he has been a permanent faculty member of the Royal College of Music in London, where he had given masterclasses regularly since 2011. His teaching career began in 1985, when at 23 he was appointed to the faculty of the Sewanee Summer Music Festival in the United States, where he taught for fifteen years.

His students have won prizes at the Queen Elisabeth, Wieniawski, Sibelius, Szymanowski, Bach, and Postacchini competitions, and have continued their studies at Curtis, Juilliard, the Royal College and Royal Academy in London, the Barenboim-Said Akademie, and the Hanns Eisler Hochschule.

As a performer he has appeared alongside Maxim Vengerov, Ivry Gitlis, Menahem Pressler, Janine Jansen, Paul Badura-Skoda, Nicholas Angelich and Itamar Golan, and has served as first violin of the Gertler, Horta and Contrast quartets and member of Trio Sonnetto.