ZBSM student Ilva Eigus won the Blue Bird 2020 contest and performed with Vadim Repin

In just a few days after the historical victory at the Nutcracker 2020 international television competition in Moscow, Ilva Eigus, 13-year-old violin student of the Zakhar Bron School of Music (studio of Liana Tretiakova), won the 1st prize at yet another international TV competition called the ‘Blue Bird’ in the capital of Russia. In the contest finale she played with Vadim Repin, one of the most famous violin soloists in the world today.

The ‘Music Life’ magazine (Russia) covered the ZBSM student’s phenomenal victory in the article titled ‘The Winner of Nutcracker 2020 Ilva Eigus Came to the Blue Bird for Another Victory’. And she did exactly that – won the 1st prize at two well-known annual international television contests for young musicians in a row! Bravo to Ilva, fantastic result!

Unlike the Nutcracker – which is positioned as a professional international music contest for young musicians, the Blue Bird (named after a 1908 play by Belgian playwright and poet Maurice Maeterlinck) is an international TV contest of talents. This year it was held for the sixth time and for the first time in these six years it was won by a young violinist from Switzerland.

Famous Russian classical pianist and the jury member Denis Matsuev said to Ilva: “Even though you have been studying in Zurich, you have intonations of our [Russian] violin school. You are a musician mature beyond your years: you have wise performance, clean music and amazing intonations”. And added: “To me you are a discovery of this evening”.

Ilva Eigus won the 1st prize by unanimous jury decision. In the contest finale she performed two pieces by her favourite Russian-Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich – Waltz and Polka – in a duet with a living legend Vadim Repin, one of the most brilliant violin soloists in the world today and one of the most famous alumni of Professor Zakhar Bron.

For Ilva it was the second time in her life when she performed on stage with the super-star: in March 2018 she and another ZBSM violin student and a very good friend of hers Sophie Branson played at the world premiere of Concerto Grosso iGeneration (written specifically for these musicians by New York based Swiss composer Daniel Schnyder) at the 5th Trans-Siberian Art Festival in Novosibirsk (Russia), together with the maestro – who is also a founder of the festival.

The Blue Bird 2020 competition was broadcast to millions of viewers on the Russian TV. For viewers outside Russia it was also streamed online.