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British Violinist Leia Zhu, 8, Keeps Winning, as 'Youngest Ever.'

Laurie Niles

Written by
Published: October 2, 2015 at 4:56 AM [UTC]

Leia Zhu, 8

Leia Zhu is a very young violinist who has been making headlines, and making some pretty sophisticated music.

Leia, who is 8, won first prize in the 2015 International Russian Rotary Music Competition, held last week in Moscow. She was the youngest to ever win that competition. From Gateshead, U.K., she is a student of Itzhak Rashkovsky and has attended numerous master classes including New Virtuosi in Queenswood and Zakhar Bron in Switzerland. She started playing violin when she was three. Just a few months ago, in March, she also was the youngest to win the International Competition ‘Young Virtuosos’ in Sophia, Bulgaria, playing movements from the Wieniawski Concerto. Here she is playing the Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto (Mvts. 2 and 3) in last week's finals:

The International Russian Rotary Music Competition's facebook page has more performances by the young children who participated, including this one of third prize winner Varvara Agayeva, 10, of Russia, playing the first movement of Saint-Saens Concerto No. 3:


From David Fourie
Posted on October 2, 2015 at 7:08 AM
I feel like such a failure! :D
From Esteban Benitez
Posted on October 2, 2015 at 11:03 AM
Sometimes I think that my parents should of taken me to violin classes when I was a kid to be a violinist but I guess it's never to late to learn and become a violinist at my age of 26.
From Paul Deck
Posted on October 2, 2015 at 4:52 PM
I don't feel like a failure. I'm glad there are so many young people who can play better than I. Otherwise classical music would have absolutely no future.

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