From the Top Alum Zlatomir Fung Wins First Prize at the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Cello Competition

From the Top Alum Zlatomir Fung (Source: The Strad)

This past June, 20-year-old cellist Zlatomir Fung won the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition’s top prize in the cello division, adding to his already impressive list of accolades that include first prize wins at the 2018 Alice & Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition and 2016 George Enescu International Cello Competition. As the first place winner of his category, he will receive US $30,000. Zlatomir is also a seasoned From the Top alum who performed six times with us (Shows 240, 267, 283, 294, 310, and 313) in addition to producing From the Top’s 2015 Music for Food Concert. He currently studies with Richard Aaron and Timothy Eddy at the Juilliard School and played on a 1783 Lorenzo Storioni cello on loan from Carriage House Violins and Reuning & Son Violins for the competition.

Click here to watch Zlatomir’s final round performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33 and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 126.

Zlatomir with Maestro Nikolai Alexeev after his final round performance. (Source: @zfungcello)

As an added bonus, enjoy this clip of Zlatomir performing Elliott Carter’s Figment No. 1 from the first winners’ concert of the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition!