BREAKING | 17 Year Old VC Young Artist Kevin Zhu Awarded 1st Prize at Paganini Competition

17 year old VC Young Artist Kevin Zhu has been awarded 1st prize at the 2018 Paganini International Violin Competition – in Genoa, Italy

17 year old VC Young Artist Kevin Zhu, from the United States, has just minutes ago been awarded 1st prize at the 2018 Paganini International Violin Competition – in Genoa, Italy.

2nd and 3rd prizes were awarded to 25 year old VC Young Artist Fedor Rudin from France and 22 year old Stephen Kim from the United States.

4th, 5th and 6th prizes were awarded to 21 year old Jiang Yiliang from China, 28 year old Oleksandr Pushkarenko from Ukraine - and 27 year old VC Young Artist Luke Hsu from the United States.

A student of Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, Kevin shot to international fame, aged just 11, after claiming 1st Prize in the Junior Division of the 2012 Menuhin Competition – the youngest prize winner in history.

He will receive €20,000, an invitation to perform on Paganini’s 1743 ‘Cannon’ Guarneri del Gesu violin – plus a number of important European and international solo debuts.

The special prizes for the best performance of a Paganini caprice, during the competition, was also awarded to VC Young Artist Kevin Zhu.

The 2018 audience prize was awarded to VC Young Artist Fedor Rudin.

The special prize for the best performance of the contemporary work in the semi-final round was awarded to VC Young Artist Rennosuke Fukuda.

Founded in 1954, former competition 1st prize winners include: György Pauk, Salvatore Accardo, Oleh Krysa, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Viktor Pikaizen, Grigori Zhislin, Miriam Fried, Gidon Kremer, Ilya Kaler, Dmitri Berlinsky, Leonidas Kavakos, Isabelle Faust, Ning Feng and VC Young Artist InMo Yang.

The 2018 jury comprised: Sergei Krylov (Jury Chair), Dimitri Berlinsky, Bin Huang, Heiner Madl, Svetlana Makarova, Daniel Smith and Anna Tifu.

PHOTO CREDIT: Giusi Sigenippe Lorelli