By Anna Takala, Year 11
From the 12th until the 22nd of April, our school had the unique honor of hosting the most prestigious junior violin competition in the world, known as the Menuhin Competition. The competition is split into a junior category for ages below 16, and a senior category for ages between 16 and 21. This year the youngest competitor was only 10 years old. Each category had 22 participiants, only one of which could be the winner.
As I would walk around the school during this period, I realized how unaware most people were about this competition, including myself. No one quite knew how difficult it is to qualify for the competition, how technically perfect the participiants have to be to even be considered. This year the competition received 317 applications from 52 countries, only 44 of which were chosen to take part. The competition is the musical equivalent of the olympics. The winners of the competition can be instantly considered as the future best violinists in the world.
We had the chance to hear Mr Davies interviewing the previous winners from the last competition, Ziyu He and Yesong Sophie Lee, and to hear about what their lives have been like since they won. Sophie, who is now 14 (she was only 12 when she won) has played with the most famous symphonies around the world, as first violin; however, she’s still in a regular middle school in America, studying regular stuff like the rest of us. Ziyu is now in university, getting a bachelor’s degree in violin, but he too has played with orchestras such as the philharmonic orchestra in London, and as a soloist on countless ocasions. Everyone in the audience was astounded when they said they did not practice all that much, “only about 2-3 hours per day” they said. Mr Davies asked them what they would do if it were not for violin, and their responses were amusing: Ziyu said he would be a conductor, or then a sniper due to his love for videogames. Sophie said she would want to be a lawyer like the ones we see in TV drama series. After the interview, they performed a breathtaking duet that sent shivers down every spine with every note that was played. They told us afterwards they had only practiced the piece twice. Everyone was in awe.
With such a competition, we need to think about why it exists, and how it came to exist. The competition was founded in 1983 by Yehudi Menuhin (born 1916, died 1999), who is widely considered to be one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. I had the chance to interview one of the founders, who is also now the artistic director of the competition, Gordon Back; here’s what he said:
The Menuhin competition is my passion, and is my life. My wife says that the competition is my first love and she is my second. I simply love the project. I’ve been involved since the very first one in 1983, I’m a pianist, so I played with Menuhin, and was the first official pianist in his competition. I’ve been involved since its birth, it’s in my blood. When Menuhin died in 99, the competition needed new direction, and keeping his philosophy was very important, but it had to have a new direction in the 21st century, so it was my idea to basically take on the olympic model and make it international. The reason we chose Geneva as the next venue is because it’s a fantastic place, relatively small, but it’s very rich culturally and home to many international organisations. The response from Geneva has been very positive and welcoming, and clearly this was an ideal location considering each concert has been virtually sold out. The competition was going to be held at the conservatoire, but due to the renovations, we needed to find an alternative venue, and when I came to see the Arts Center, I saw it’s a brilliant art complex. We then of course found out that the Conservatoire was not closed, but I thought that we should start off at Ecolint all the same, with the host families for the kids, and it was a logical step to go from a school, to a conservatory for the semi finals, to the Victoria Hall for the finals. It was wonderful to work at Ecolint because everyone was so enthusiastic and so supportive, and really wonderful. Although the competition is very famous internationally, it is always of course difficult to get the word out in a new city, where people may not have necessarily heard of it. But really it was a true success, and I believe this was a fantastic round for the Menuhin competition.
