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Polina Nikiforova was born 1986 in St. Petersburg, Russia, und has lived in Switzerland since 1994. When she was five, she was given her first violin lessons by Boris Finkelstein in St. Petersburg. Afterwards, she was a violin student of Emilie Haudenschild in Basle, Switzerland. In 2000 she began her studies with Professor Igor Ozim in Berne, Switzerland. From 2003 to 2005, she attended his masterclass at the University Mozarteum Salzburg. Since October 2005 she has continued her studies at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin, first with Professor Stephan Picard and since 2009 with Professor Kolja Blacher.

When she was eleven, she was invited to perform at the Zurich Tonhalle for the Jecklin Musical Meeting. A year later she gave her first recital in Basle 1999, she won the first prize with distinction at the Swiss Youth's Musical Competition and played at the inauguration of the Zurich Festival. In the same year, she was awarded the first prize of the "Concorso Musicale" at Scopello/Stresa, Italy. At the age of twelve, the young violinist performed for the first time as a soloist with orchestra. Since then, she has been playing with, amongst others, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Camerata St. Petersburg (Hermitage Symphony Orchestra), and the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in a TV-live-transmission from Lugano at the Swiss finale of the Grand-Prix-Eurovision-Competition.

Until now, Polina Nikiforova has performed in Germany, Italy, France, Russia and Switzerland. In the year 2000, she was awarded the promotion prize of the ORPHEUS-Concerts. On 23 March 2002, her 16th birthday, she received the promotion prize of the European Cultural Foundation "Pro Europa" in the German city of Karlsruhe. In 2003 Polina Nikiforova was awarded the 2nd prize at the International Alexander Glasunow Competition in Paris. She is supported by the foundation Ruth and Ernst Burkhalter and since 2006 she has been a scholar of the Foundation Villa Musica Rhineland-Palatinate. 2007 Polina Nikiforova was awarded the 2nd prize of the 6th Concurso de Instrumentos de Arco "Julio Cardona" in Covilha, Portugal (no 1st prize having been bestowed). 2009 she received a scholarship of the Carl Flesch Academy Baden-Baden, Germany. She was a guest at several musical festivals such as the Swiss Musikfestwochen and the Mendelssohn Festival in Wengen, Switzerland. Polina Nikiforova is also devoted to chamber music in its manifold forms. Besides Classical and Romantic sonatas she cultivates virtuoso pieces, too, as well as Preclassical and Contemporarian music.