Born in Moscow, in 1980 he has graduated from the Moscow Theatre and Arts College as specialist in lighting technology. From 1978, Mikhail Sokolov works with the Bolshoi Theatre. As Lighting Designer Assistant, he has taken part in the following productions: operas War and peace (1981), Rigoletto (1989), La traviata (1996), Turandot (2002), The Fiery Angel (2004), Falstaff (2005); ballets Passacaglia, La dame de Pique (2001), and Notre Dame de Paris (2003).
As Lighting Designer he has amounted the following productions: operas Prince Igor (1993), The Miserly Knight and Aleko (1994), Le nozze di Figaro and Khovanschina (1995), La Bohême (1996), The Mermaid (2000); ballets La Bayadère (1991), Le Corsaire and Don Quixote (1994), Fantasy on the Theme of Casanova (1993), Snow White (1995), The Taming of Shrew (1996), Giselle (1997), Don Quixote (1999), Nijinsky (2001), Swan Lake (2001), Legend of Love (2002), Raymonda (2003), Gaitè parisienne, Le tricorne and George Balanchine’s Ballets (2005), The Golden Age (2006), Romeo and Juliet (2010).
Worked in Japan. As Lighting Designer he amounted the Rudolph Nureev Hommage concerts at the English National Opera. From 1999, Mikhail Sokolov has been Lighting Designer with the Yuri Grigorovich Ballet Theatre in Krasnodar. He also collaborates with Grigorovich abroad. He took part in DVD releases of the Bolshoi Ballet productions.