Yuri Krasavin attended classes in the Krasnodar Mu­sic School and, later, the Rimsky-Korsakov Leningrad Music School (class of Galina Ustvolskaya). He gra­duated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1986 (class of Alexander Mnatsakanyan), while started to compose in 1970. His works include three piano concerts, chamber ensemble pieces, pianoforte pieces (among them two sonatas), film soundtracks (his filmography includes Quietly Flows the Don (2015), The Tzar (2009) and The Brest Fortress (2010), and transcriptions of other authors’ works (among them the ballet Paquita to music by Édouard Del­devez and Ludwig Minkus).

In 1999, his ballet Magrittomania was first staged by the San Francisco Ballet (choreographer Yury Possokhov), and in 2004 it was moved to the Bol­shoi Theatre. In 2003, his Concerto for Violin and Cello was first played in Berlin with the orchestra Seven Stop-Overs in Southeast Asia.

Two world premieres of his ballets took place at the Bolshoi Theatre: 2022 — of Dancemania (choreography by V. Samodurov); 2023 — of The Queen of Spades based on the opera of the same name by P. Tcaikovsky; 2024 — of The Tempest based on the play of the same name by W. Shakespeare.