Juilliard 4th year BM

For the past three years I was a student of the concertmaster of NY Philharmonic, Glenn Dicterow. As the longest serving concertmaster of the orchestra for 34 years, Mr. Dicterow has finally decided to step down and return to his hometown, Los Angeles, to teach at the USC Thornton School of Music and be only a part time professor at The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music. Unfortunately for me this meant to share studio with another teacher and so as of this year, I became a part time student of my previous chamber music coach, Ms. Sylvia Rosenberg. As I was entering this year, I was not really sure what to expect due to this major change in my solo studies. Even though I have known Ms. Rosenberg for several years as a chamber coach, I have never experienced her as a private teacher and that is a very different thing as she has reputation of being demanding but also very mean and rude if things are not going particularly well. Luckily for me, from the first lesson we knew we would understand each other very well and now I am very happy to be studying with such outstanding but also very different teachers.

From the beginning of the year we worked very hard as I had several things coming up. Again like last year at the end of September, I decided to enter the Juilliard Concerto Competition. The piece chosen for this year was Mozart’s violin concerto No. 3. 23 violinists competed in the first round and after being selected as one of five finalists, I found myself in exactly the same position as last year as I was the only undergraduate student, facing four students from the Master degree program. But this time I came out as a winner and as reward on October 13 I performed the Mozart Concerto with the Juilliard orchestra under the baton of the chief conductor of Metropolitan Opera and Vienna Symphony, Maestro Fabio Luisi, in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The concert received very good review in New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/arts/music/fabio-luisi-leads-juilliard-orchestra-in-wagner-and-mozart.html?_r=0, and will also be reviewed by The Strad Magazine in the coming days.

During the summer festival in Santa Barbara I had a chance to audition for New York Philharmonic Global Academy which allows 10 of the students to join the Philharmonic for two weeks and experience the life of an orchestra musician. I successfully auditioned and in January I will be able to experience what it means to be part of the New York Philharmonic. And because the NY Phil also had five openings for violin jobs, I decided to take my first professional audition which happened two weeks ago. I managed to pass the first two rounds to the semifinals where the total of 571 applicants was reduced to only 20. For me this result is very encouraging for the future, even more after knowing that the orchestra hired only two people out of possible five.

After I will graduate this year I would like to continue and in my studies and pursue a Master degree in music. Having this degree is a very important and essential part of musical education and it is also a requirement for applying for certain jobs such as leadership positions in orchestras or for any level of teaching. The schools I am applying to for Master of Music degree are The Juilliard School and the USC Thornton School of Music; I will also apply to Manhattan School of Music for Master in Orchestral Studies degree. I chose these schools based on faculty, different possible fields of study and opportunities. At USC I would keep studying with Mr. Dicterow and the school offers the possibility of getting a minor degree in arts, languages or literature while majoring in Music. In recent years The Thornton School of Music became one of the most prominent schools thanks to many generous donations and artistic boom on the west coast. The Juilliard School is simply the best conservatory and a place for young musicians in the world. It offers the highest quality education and there is a healthy competition between the students which motivates us to work very hard. I would have the possibility to remain student of Ms. Rosenberg and the school offers further connection to the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan opera. Manhattan School of music would offer me one thing, which neither of the schools mentioned above cannot, and that is the possibility to study with both of my current teachers Ms. Rosenberg and Mr. Dicterow. I would also be pursuing a different type of Master degree which is highly sought after and the process is very selective because it is the only program of such kind in the United States.

I am very grateful for the support that the Kellner Family Foundation has provided me with over the past three years. Without it I would have never had the chance to get such education which would allow me to develop my musical and violin skills into this level and without these skills I would not have been able to do any of the things I have done in recent weeks. Without it I would have never met any of the great people I had the chance to work, collaborate or study with. It is a tremendous chance for me to continue studying at this level and have the opportunity to get even better and achieve even more and I would be very thankful if I were given the financial support to continue in what I have been doing for the past seventeen years.