Veselin Panteleev-Eschkenazy: I Love Impossible Causes

Veselin Panteleev-Eschkenazy was born in a family of musicians. At the age of 11, he became a concertmaster of the youth philharmonic of Professor Vladi Simeonov. He graduated the National Music Academy in Sofia. In 1990, he moved to London, where he completed a masters degree for solo performers. He is a laureate of international violin competitions in Beijing and London. He has concerts in Europe, US, South America, India and China.

He is currently concertmaster of the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

He won the 2013 Personality in the News poll in the sphere of culture of novinite.bg, novinite.com, novinite.ru.

- Congratulations on winning our 2013 Personality in the News poll in the sphere of culture! What are personalities like in an orchestra? Apart from undisputed talent, what other qualities does a soloist need to have?

In our orchestra, which is the world's number one orchestra at the moment, all of the personalities are members of the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. We are proud of every musician in it, taking into account that they have gone through one of the toughest competitions to become our colleague. All of them have the talent and preparation necessary to be members of this orchestra. The soloist, on their part, must be very resilient, not only on stage, but in general, including physical endurance.

I travel all over the world and I perform in places with various weather conditions in different time zones. I am expected to appear on stage in the evening and the audience expects 200% out of me. This is not easy and it takes a lot of preparation, both professional and physical.

- Your violin, a Guarneri del Jesu...