We are delighted to present the 10th Anniversary Edition of the International ZBSM Summer Violin Masterclass. For the first time in the history of the masterclass, participants will also have the opportunity to take part in a violin competition and compete for special prizes, including a performance with the Belenus String Quartet at the anniversary concert in St Peter’s Church, Zurich.
To make this anniversary edition truly special, for the first time in the history of the masterclass, we are introducing a competition for its participants. First, Second and Third Prizes will be awarded in each of the competition’s two age categories. Prizes may be shared.
The main special prize offers the best performers the opportunity to appear with the Belenus String Quartet at the anniversary concert in St Peter’s Church in Zurich, a prestigious venue with seating for up to 650 people.
Additional special prizes include certificates for individual violin lessons at the Zakhar Bron School of Music and the possibility of a scholarship for the 2027 ZBSM Summer Violin Masterclass.
We warmly invite young violinists from around the world to join us in Zurich for this special anniversary edition.
Liana Tretiakova is the founder, school principal and lead violin teacher of the Zakhar Bron School of Music in Zurich. An alumna of the legendary Professor Zakhar Bron, she has 30 years of teaching experience, including 15 years as Professor Bron’s teaching assistant, and continues his world-renowned violin teaching tradition.
Thanks to her natural talent for working with children and teenagers, as well as her ability to achieve outstanding results, Liana Tretiakova has unique expertise in guiding young violinists from the age of four up to around the age of twenty, from their first steps on the violin through to university entrance and professional-level musical development.
Over the last ten years alone, Liana’s students have won more than one hundred prizes at music competitions around the world, including such prestigious international contests as the International Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poland, the International Arthur Grumiaux Competition for Young Violinists in Belgium, the Ilona Fehér International Violin Competition in Hungary and the International David Oistrakh Violin Competition in Kazakhstan.
Her students have performed as soloists with orchestras in Europe and Asia, including the Süddeutsche Philharmonie in Germany, the Colchester Symphony Orchestra in England, the Sofia Sinfonietta in Bulgaria, and the Prague Royal Philharmonic in Switzerland.
Since 2022, Liana’s students have regularly appeared in concerts with orchestras at Tonhalle Zürich, one of the world’s most prestigious concert venues. Their achievements have been featured in The Strad, Blick, Tages-Anzeiger and Schweizer Illustrierte, as well as on Swiss television and radio.
Her students were selected for renowned masterclasses at the Verbier Festival, the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein and the International Summer Academy Mozarteum University. In addition, Liana’s students have performed at the Gstaad Festival, the Montreux Music Festival, the Menton Music Festival and the Trans-Siberian Art Festival by Vadim Repin.
Inna Khriplovich has taught violin at the Zakhar Bron School of Music in Zurich since 2014. During this time, many of her students have won top prizes at national and international competitions, including the Grumiaux International Competition in Brussels, the Prodige and Flames competitions in Paris, the Swiss Youth Music Competition and Zurich Youth Classics. In 2025, at the Barcelona International Young Artists Competition, she received an award from ESTA Spain, the Spanish branch of the European String Teachers Association, in recognition of her teaching achievements.
Her students currently study at the Art and Sport School Zurich and the Art and Sport Gymnasium Zurich. They have participated in the Stage4Kids International Festival in Hamburg and the Lucerne Festival Children’s Concert, and have appeared as soloists with chamber and symphony orchestras in Switzerland, the UK, Spain, France, Russia and Moldova. Since 2021, Inna Khriplovich has also served on the faculty of the MingClassics Summer Festival & Academy in Switzerland.
Inna Khriplovich began her violin studies in Novosibirsk, Russia, at the School for Gifted Children. She later received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with honours from the Novosibirsk State Conservatory, where she studied with Professor Marina Kuzina-Koifman and regularly participated in the masterclasses of Professor Zakhar Bron. She subsequently continued her studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with Professor Nelli Shkolnikova, one of the distinguished representatives of the Russian violin school, receiving a Performer Diploma.
From 2001 to 2003, Inna was a member of the New World Symphony, the orchestral academy in Miami founded by Michael Tilson Thomas. She also participated in the Pacific Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra and the Miyazaki Music Festival. From 2005 to 2017, she was a member of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. In 2006 and 2007, she was based in Japan, where she freelanced with the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, in addition to teaching and performing at the Tokyo American Club.
Appreciated for her deeply expressive performances, Alissa Margulis regularly performs at major concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Tchaikovsky Hall Moscow, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Cologne Philharmony, the Vienna Musikverein, Sumida Triphony Hall Tokyo, the Sage Gateshead, the Tonhalle Zurich and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall.
Born in Germany into a family of Russian musicians, Alissa Margulis studied in Cologne with Zakhar Bron, in Brussels with Augustin Dumay and in Vienna with Pavel Vernikov. She won numerous prizes at international violin competitions and was awarded the “Pro Europa” Prize of the European Arts Foundation which was presented to her by Daniel Barenboim in Berlin.
She made her first public appearance at the age of seven with the Budapest Soloists and has since performed with numerous orchestras such as the English Chamber Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National d’Ile de France, New Russia Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Bilkent Orchestra Ankara, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, Belgian National Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestras of Kiev, Skopje, Ljubljana, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the Kremerata Baltica, amongst many others.
Alissa Margulis has worked with renowned conductors: Ivor Bolton, Jacques Mercier, Arnold Katz, Jacek Kaspszyk, Dmitry Liss, Jaap van Zweden, Enrique Mazzola, Daniel Raiskin, Fabrice Bollon, Stefan Vladar, François-Xavier Roth, Lars Vogt, Howard Griffiths, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Hubert Soudant, Yuri Bashmet, Gidon Kremer, Christian Arming, Augustin Dumay, Mikko Franck and Gerd Albrecht to name just a few of them.
Besides her solo career Alissa Margulis is an enthusiastic chamber music player and collaborates with artists such as Martha Argerich, Yuri Bashmet, David Geringas, Ivry Gitlis, Gidon Kremer, Bruno Giuranna, Mischa Maisky, Gabriela Montero, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Liana Issakadze, Alexandre Tharaud, Stephen Kovacevich, Alexander Lonquich, Polina Leschenko, Paul Badura-Skoda and Lars Vogt.
She has also appeared at numerous festivals: at the Enescu Festival Bucharest, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, in Davos, Tours, Stavanger Festival, at the Mozartwoche Salzburg, “Spannungen”-Festival in Heimbach, “Progetto” Martha Argerich Festival in Lugano, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Sochi Winter Arts Festival and Verbier Festival.
The Bron School Violin Competition is part of the ZBSM Summer Violin Masterclass, held in Zurich, Switzerland. Participation in the competition is open exclusively to participants of the masterclass. The competition provides young violinists with a platform for artistic development, performance experience and professional exposure.
All competition participants will perform live before the jury, with piano accompaniment provided by the school. The jury will evaluate each participant’s performance using a 25-point scoring system. The results will be announced at the conclusion of the competition.
Participants will compete in one of the following age categories, determined by their age on the first day of the competition.
Prize winners will be awarded First, Second and Third Prizes in each category. Prizes may be shared.
The main special prize of the competition, awarded to the best performers, is the opportunity to perform with the Belenus String Quartet at St Peter’s Church in Zurich on Sunday, 16 August 2026, at 17:00.
Further special prizes include two certificates, each covering three free individual one-hour violin lessons at the Zakhar Bron School of Music: one with Liana Tretiakova and one with Inna Khriplovich.
A scholarship for three individual one-hour lessons at the 2027 ZBSM Summer Violin Masterclass may also be awarded as a special prize.
The competition jury is composed of members of the ZBSM summer violin masterclass faculty.
We warmly invite participants to choose their competition programme from the recommended repertoire below. Should you wish to perform a different work, please contact the ZBSM administration for approval in advance.
The masterclass will culminate in two concerts in Zurich.
All masterclass participants will be invited to perform with piano accompaniment at the Participants’ Concert in Klus Park Chapel, Zurich, on Saturday, 15 August 2026, at 15:00.
On Sunday, 16 August 2026, at 17:00, the recipients of the competition’s main special prize will have the opportunity to perform with the Belenus String Quartet at the Anniversary Concert in St Peter’s Church in Zurich.