28-Year-Old American Violinist David Radzynski Has Been Voted Concertmaster of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

American violinist David Radzynski, 28, has been announced as the new concertmaster of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Radzynski is from Columbus, Ohio, and was selected following an audition that ended Dec. 19 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Radzynski will assume his position in March 2015. Thirty violinists were invited to compete for the position through a pre-screening process by the orchestra.

He was one of the four finalists and earned the appointment after performing Johannes Brahms’s “Violin Concerto” alongside the Israel Philharmonic and maestro Zubin Mehta. After only five minutes of deliberation, the jury voted him the unanimous winner.

“I am still trying to digest all that is happening. It is such an incredible honor,”
said Radzynski, a graduate student who was pursuing an artist diploma in violin performance at Park University’s International Center for Music.

“From the first time I heard David play, I knew he was a major talent,” said Ben Sayevich, distinguished Lithuanian-Israeli violinist and professor of music/violin in the ICM. “I am so thrilled that he is being recognized by world-renowned musicians such as Mehta.”

Radzynski, who earned a graduate certificate in violin performance from Park in May, was the winner of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra Young Musicians Competition in 2001. He later appeared as a soloist with the Polish National Philharmonic in Warsaw and was awarded first prize in the solo competition's senior division of the American String Teachers’ Association.

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1936 by Bronislaw Huberman. The IPO tours the world’s cultural centers and prestigious festivals annually and contributes to the absorption of new immigrant musicians. The orchestra has hosted many of the world’s greatest conductors and soloists while developing Israeli artists and young talents throughout Israel and abroad.

Congrats to this young violinist!