Born in 1988 in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), he joined a music school specialising in the education of gifted children at the age of six, where he studied violin, viola and conducting with Vladimir Neymer. At the age of thirteen, he made his conducting debut with the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan, where he was appointed assistant conductor that same year (becoming principal conductor in 2006). The following year, he conducted his first opera - Bizet's Carmen - at the National Opera of Uzbekistan.

In 2010, his career took a decisive turn in Bamberg when he won Second Prize in the prestigious Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition. This prize gave him the opportunity to work with prestigious orchestras such as the Staatskapelle Dresden, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. In August 2016, Aziz Shokhakimov won the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award at the Salzburg Festival. Two years later, he conducted the festival's opening concert alongside violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. In 2023 he received the Musical Personality of the Year award from the Syndicat de la critique Théâtre, Musique et Danse.

Since 2017, he has been artistic director of the Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra (Turkey). He has also conducted major orchestras of international renown on numerous occasions. In 2019, he made a name for himself conducting the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France in a programme based on Shostakovich. In June 2021, he was called upon to replace Sir John Eliot Gardiner at short notice at the helm of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich, in a programme devoted to Brahms and Dvorak. In the coming seasons, the Maestro has been invited to conduct the Wiener Symphoniker, the Orchestre de la Suisse romande, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre national de France, etc.

Alongside his symphonic career, Aziz Shokhakimov is very active in the field of opera: Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Dusseldorf & Duisburg) between 2015 and 2021, he can be found in the pit of the German opera house for numerous productions: Madame Butterfly, Salomé, Tosca and The Queen of Spades.

The musician has published a fine CD dedicated to Weber (Mirare, 2017) with clarinettist Raphaël Sévère and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, as well as a CD devoted to Tchaikovsky, recorded with the Orchestra and released in August 2023.

His first encounter with the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg was in 2014, in a programme devoted to Mahler and Shostakovich. Aziz Shokhakimov will remember this experience as one in which he ‘found the musicians of the Orchestra to be solar’, and felt that he had ‘created a bond of familiarity and closeness with the ensemble’. Since then, he has worked regularly with the Orchestra, of which he was appointed Music and Artistic Director in July 2020. He took up his post in September 2021, and his contract was recently renewed until 2026.