Under the title "Young Soloists Play Baroque Music" eleven of the most advanced violin students of the Zakhar Bron School of Music gave two concerts with the world famous Gringolts Quartet. The first concert took place at the end of August at the Kirche Tal in Herrliberg as part of the Golden Festival 2020, and the second just two weeks later at the Kirche St. Peter in Zürich.

The concert program consisted of some of the best-known masterpieces of Baroque music – from Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to the Devil’s Trill by Giuseppe Tartini. Both concerts opened with Vivaldi’s Spring, performed by Nina Gringolts – the daughter of the phenomenal, world-admired soloist Ilya Gringolts (winner of the Paganini Competition in Genoa and co-founder of the Gringolts Quartet) and the outstanding violinist Anahit Kurtikyan (also co-founder of the Gringolts Quartet). It was Nina’s first performance with her parents and it was absolutely amazing!

The first part continued with Vivaldi’s other three seasons – Summer, Autumn and Winter, played respectively by Moe Zürcher, Marc Senn and Sophie Branson. Everyone did a great job, and after Sophie’s performance, there was a short break before the second part began.

Emil Spiess opened the second part of the concert with Bach’s Concerto in E major. This was followed by Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto Grosso, played by the quartet and a lovely ZBSM duo of Eva Solodovskaya and Lena-Lisa Rosa. Next, Nikita Koller played a beautiful piece by Tartini-Kreisler, the Variations in the style of Corelli. The concert concluded with the virtuoso Devil’s Trill by Ilva Eigus, which the audience applauded with a standing ovation.

Each concert was attended by about 400 people. After the great success in Herrliberg, the follow-up concert in Zürich was organized within two weeks and was sold out: The audience, most of whom were hearing the young violinists of the Zakhar Bron School of Music for the first time, was thrilled and more than happy to listen to them with the Gringolts Quartet – this needed no introduction.

At the beginning of the 2020/2021 academic school year, it was the first time in the school’s more than ten-year history that ZBSM students performed with the Gringolts Quartet. It was a great honor for us and we are very grateful to the quartet for this fantastic opportunity! On behalf of the Zakhar Bron School of Music team, we would like to personally thank: Ilya Gringolts (violin), Anahit Kurtikyan (violin), Esther Fritzsche (viola) and Claudius Herrmann (cello).