A record number of 28 participants from 18 countries and 3 continents – Europe, Asia and America will take part in the fourth edition of the International Violin Competition “Vasco Abadjiev”.

The competition will be held November 23-26, 2017 in the hall of the Lyubomir Pipkov Music School in Sofia. The auditions will be in three rounds, the last being with an orchestra. The organizers from the Club for UNESCO Leonardo da Vinci Sofia are also proud of a significant local presence among the violinists – three Bulgarians, as well as one Bulgarian musician with a Belgian passport.
The prestigious international jury is chaired by Prof. Angel Stankov, and Prof. Elisabeth Kropfitsch from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Prof. Habib Kayaleh (Switzerland), Prof. Yosif Radionov, Prof. Nedyalcho Todorov, and Dr. Laurits Larsen (Denmark). Traditionally, Dr. Larsen will provide the latest model of strings for all the participants and jury members by his company Larsen Strings. He will also provide a 500 euro prize for the best performance of Paganini’s Caprice, played on the latest model of Larsen Strings.
The project is funded by the Metropolitan Culture Program of Sofia Municipality for 2017. The main bank of the competition is Unicredit Bulbank. For the fourth time they provide the prize fund of 3300 euro. An additional 500 euro prize by the name of Stefan Balkanski is given by Antonia Balkanska Lavine for best performance of Beethoven.

The goal of the competition, being held once in every two years, is to revive the national and international memory of the great violinist Vasco Abadjiev (1926-1978) and to encourage the development of the young violin talents – the heirs of the spirit of Abadjiev. The winner of the first edition in 2011 was the outstanding German talent Stephan Tarara, in the second the victory was shared by Daichi Nakamura (Japan) and Liubov Stekolshchikova (Russia) and the award in the third edition was won by the Ukrainian girl Mariya Krasnyuk.