My second year at the Juilliard School of Music in NYC

I completed the fall semester before Christmas and I am now technically almost 3/8 of a bachelor. We took many tests and exams during the last weeks of the semester, and our teachers then calculated our percentage ratings and final grades from the results. Just before Christmas, I was included in an orchestral concert series led by conductor Larry Rachlef, head of the conducting department at Rice University in Houston.

The series was not long; the rehearsals took just about ten days, but there were many of them and they were intense. The concert met with huge success; it was one of the best concerts that the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra has ever played, and we even did an encore – a very rare occurrence at the Juilliard Orchestra performances. In addition to this, I was making a recording for enrolment in the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition, the most famous violin contest in the world. It involved a huge amount of repertoire which I prepared along with Mr Glenn Dicterow and recorded in the school’s state-of-the-art recording studio. As a result, I was very busy before Christmas, but importantly, I managed it all. A few days ago, I received an invitation letter stating that I’d made it to the main round of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, which will be held in Brussels and will take more than 6 weeks, through the DVD pre-selection process. This is an incredible personal and professional success for me.

The spring semester started after Christmas, and it started all over again. This semester, I will do my research on the topic of interpreting Beethoven’s violin sonatas. It will be intriguing to study the views and observations of major artists past and present. I also added one chamber activity – we will be working on Schubert’s cello quintet, which is considered to be one of the best chamber pieces in history. The concert with the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra is nearing; Alan Gilbert, Chief Conductor and Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, will be the conductor, and the piece we’ll be playing is Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. It’s an amazing experience to see the conductor of such a major orchestra working with the Juilliard Orchestra – to see someone who is used to working with professional ensembles working with an orchestra like ours.

We will have two-week spring holidays after that. My brother and I will fly to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to play a recital and volunteer as teachers and participate in a concert by the students of the New Mexico School of Arts. I’m in for a very busy month after the holidays, as I will have to manage all my exams one month earlier and close my semester by April 25, which is when I am supposed to fly to the competition in Brussels.

During the year, I auditioned for admission to various summer music academies across the USA; most of them took place in New York, or applicants were asked to submit a recording. If I obtain a grant for any of them, I will have a chance to work with major artists during my holidays as well.