Azerbaijan’s talented violinist wins medal in Berlin

Azerbaijan's talented violinist Elvin Hoxha Ganiyev has won a gold medal at the 2nd Berliner International Music Competition.

The jury members highly appreciated the performance of the national musician.

Notably, Elvin Hoxha Ganiyev is included in the Golden Book of Azerbaijan's young talents.

The musician was born in Ankara into a musical family. His grandfather, Server Ganiyev, was famous conductor and violinist; his father is a lead cellist, and his mother, a pianist.

Elvin started play violin, when he was 5 years old, and when he was 6 years he was sufficiently proficient to join the Music Preparatory Primary School at the Bilkent University. At 8 years, he gave his first orchestral concert with his grandfather, and, during the same year, he was admitted to the Zurich Conservatory Young Student programme as a student of the legendary Zakhar Bron (with whom he still studies).

In 2005, Elvin became a member of Cihat Askın and Young Friends (CAKA) and in 2006 he was awarded 1st prize in the International Classical Culture Heritage competition in Moscow.

He has always performed with renowned conductors, such as Zubin Mehta, Yuri Bashmet, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Zakhar Bron, Sasha Goetzel, Gur̈ er Aykal, Rauf Abdullayev, Server Ganiyev, Rengim Gokmen, Naci Ozguuc, Valery Vorona, Klaus Weise, Placido Domingo ,Erol Erdinc, Jules van Hessen, Ender Sakpınar, Nikolay Lalov, and David Bernard. He has worked with masters, such as Zakhar Bron,Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov, Ivri Gitlis, Cihat Aşkın, Fazıl Say,Viktor Pikayzen, Yusif Eyvazov, and Guḧ er-Suḧ er Pekinel.

Elvin Hoxha Ganiyev is the winner of different international festivals, including the 11th International Young Violinist Competition after Wieniawski and Lipinski (Poland), International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians (Switzerland), "Classical Heritage" International Competition (Russia), and “Night in Madrid” festival-contest (Spain).

He has received many honours and many awards including a medal from the Pope.

The purpose of the Berliner International Music Competition is to discover artists of outstanding personality and provide awards which can help launch international careers.

It is open to a wide range of performers and is divided into three groups: pianists, string performers, singers and wind performers.

The music competition brought together the 18-35 year old violinists from all over the world.

The jury included the experts from the U.S., France, Czech Republic, Italy, Russia, Germany, Norway and Poland.