Tuning up for Windsor Festival

by Hannah Masters-Waage on August 28, 2010

As the stage is set and the violins tuned for this year’s Windsor Festival, starting on September 18, Beat Magazine talks to last year’s winner of the string competition, Diana Galvydyte, about her musical loves, the future and what makes the Windsor Festival International String Competition so special.

Last year Diana wowed the judges at the festival with a final programme of Chausson’s Poeme opus 25 and Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy at the Theatre Royal after making it through previous rounds with a varied repertoire. It was an experience she remembers fondly.

“For the semi-final round it was nice to play a recital in a church, which differs from most other competitions which can have lots of pressure, but the church had so much atmosphere,” she says.

Diana has been invited back to the festival this year to perform Beethoven, Bruch and Mendelssohn with the Philharmonia Orchestra on September 22 and is excited to be playing what she describes as the most important event of her career so far. And for someone in her mid-twenties it has been quite a varied career indeed.

Diana grew up in a musical home in Vilnius, Lithuania and followed in her mother’s footsteps by becoming a violinist, picking up her first fiddle at the tender age of six.

After studying at the Ciurlionis Gymnasium of Art in Vilnius in her youth, Diana then came to England to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey and then the Royal College of Music. She has given performances around the world with various orchestras playing in the UK, Lithuania, Netherlands, France, USA and Canada.

Diana is also a seasoned competition entrant, having won prizes in at least fifteen international competitions for young artists, including one in her home country, the Jasha Heifetz International Competition for which she is also a laureate.

But for Diana the Windsor Festival competition offers something that others do not.

“Competitions often require a particular selection of programme which doesn’t change from one to the other,” says Diana. “But the Windsor Festival String Competition is unique because I was able to choose the works that I thought would make a good programme.

“I think it’s a wonderful approach because it allows the performer to show what they are best at and also choose a programme which bears a special meaning to them. One could conclude a lot about an artist’s development from their presentation.”

Diana’s development has been influenced by her keen interest in 19^th and 20^th century music and her great loves include Ravel, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, whom she describes as having much meaning and sarcasm, but a wonderful sense of purity too.

There are a number of contemporary artists that Diana is also inspired by including Esa-Pekka Salonen and Huw Watkins, but at the moment she is particularly enjoying playing Beethoven.

“I feel like there are so many hidden emotions, and in search of Beethoven’s ones I keep discovering new ones to myself, this process seems to attract me,” she says.

One of Diana’s dreams as a violinist has been to form a piano trio and after a long time of searching for the right partners she hopes to soon announce the name of her newly formed trio. As for her long-term future, she is looking forward to continuing to learn as much as possible from the music she plays.

“As my career progresses I am always striving to understand and learn to deliver the music as closely to its initial meaning as possible and I’m looking forward to continuing to develop this throughout my career.”

The Windsor Festival 2010 runs from Saturday, September 18 to Sunday, October 3 and celebrates music, film, literature and more. Highlights include the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, London Festival Opera and Beloved Clara, which tells the story of Schumann and Brahms through music and readings. The next string competition will be held in 2011.

Visit www.windsorfestival.com to find out more and to book tickets.