ZBSM students Ilva Eigus and Sophie Branson successfully passed the entrance examination to the PreCollege Musik ZHdK in March this year.

The young violinists have been with the Zakhar Bron School of Music from the very beginning. They started taking violin lessons in the studio of Liana Tretiakova at the age of four, and now Ilva is thirteen and Sophie is fourteen years old. In the ten years they have been attending the school, they have achieved many accomplishments.

First of all, they have learnt to play violin on a highly professional level. They have performed at dozens of concerts in Switzerland and abroad, including performances with chamber and philharmonic orchestras, such as: Novosibirsk Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Omsk Chamber Orchestra, and Belarusian State Musical Capella Sonorus of Minsk. Both young violinists have performed on stage with world famous soloists Vadim Repin and Alexander Buzlov – at the V Trans-Siberian Art Festival in Novosibirsk; they have performed in concerts at the Jean Cocteau Museum in Menton (France) – at the annual Menton Classical Music Festival; and both violinists have played on the stage of the famous Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow – at the ‘Moscow Meets Friends’ Festival.

Sophie and Ilva have won numerous competitions – both national and international. Ilva’s greatest achievement so far is her first prize at the Nutcracker International Music Competition in Moscow last year (in the 21-year history of the Competition, this was the first time it has been won by a Swiss participant).

They have participated in violin masterclasses with some of the best teachers and soloists in the world today: Zakhar Bron, Maxim Vengerov, Vadim Repin, Daniel Hope, Latica Honda-Rosenberg, Priya Mitchell, Esther Hoppe – to name only a few.

During all these years, the girls have been working really hard on mastering their performance skills: intensive lessons at the school of music in Zurich, obligatory practice at home – several hours a day, every day! – concerts and festivals, competitions, masterclasses… All of this has contributed to the high levels of performance the two students demonstrate today.

We are very happy with our students’ exam results, and congratulate them and their teacher! They will continue to take violin lessons at the ZBSM in accordance with our cooperation framework with the PreCollege – and theoretical music disciplines will be taught at the PreCollege Music ZHdK.