Hello after the holiday break!

I'm glad to be back and to continue on sharing my thoughts and reflections with you.

I would like to dedicate the entire upcoming week to one of the most important cultural events in Poznań - the 15th International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition, which is celebrated in our city since October 8th.

First of all, it's essential to point out that it's the oldest violin competition in the world. It was organized for the first time in 1935 by a nephew of the famous composer, Adam Wieniawski. The first winner was Ginette Neveu, an amazing (only) 15-years old French violinist, who beat a legendary Soviet artist, David Oistrakh. Unfortunately, she couldn't take advantage of her extreme success for a long time - she died in a plane crash in 1949, when she before her 31st birthday.

The competition was planned to be held every five years, but it was interrupted by the Second World War. It came back after a gap of 17 years, in 1952, and from that time it took place 12 times. Every edition gives us another reason to be proud of our Polish violinists - there are visible and important amongst the participants and they continue on proving that the so called 'Polish school of the violin' is one of the greatest in the world.

There's a lot to tell about, but let's get to the point. Today was the 2nd day of the 2nd stage auditions and I had a huge pleasure to listen to Celina Kotz's performance. She's 1 of 6 Polish violinists who had qualified to the 2nd stage of the competition, just like 5 years ago, when she was an impressing 17-years-old violinist, promising to be a great artist one day. And today she's proved that this day had already come - she's an extremely mature, conscious and developed Artist, who is capable of telling wonderful stories through her beautiful music.

She started her performance with 'Little Viennese March' by Fritz Kreisler. It was a nice, well-played miniature, which reawoke my appetite for more. Then she played Wieniawski 'Legende' op. 17, which turned out to be a nostalgic, even melancholic story of something left or lost. She finished with Ravel Sonata in G Major 'Blues', which I find very hard to describe with words. The first movement, very impressionistic, full of pastel colors and long brush strokes, took me to the 19th-century France. And then, when I was thinking that it couldn't be better, there it was. The second movement. 'All that jazz'. It was so vivid and real that I was feeling like I were sitting in Blue Note drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and listening to a great, Friday night jam session...

Wanna go there? Just listen: