Dina Schneidermann

Odessa-born and trained in Moscow in David Oistrakh's class, Dina Schneidermann built a soloist's career that carried her across Europe, the Americas and East Asia and made Bulgaria her second musical home. With the Bulgarian violinist Emil Kamilarov she formed Duo Deschka, a partnership that toured for decades. Pancho Vladigerov wrote for her, and she was among the violinists invited to play Paganini's Guarneri del Gesù, Il Cannone, which she took up in an Uppsala concert as late as 1996. The National Academy of Music in Sofia awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2001; Sweden, where she settled and taught, awarded her the Illis quorum medal in 2001. In 2011 she founded the Prof. Emil Kamilarov International Music Festival in Sofia, with its competition for young violinists. She died in Uppsala in 2016. Her first lessons were at the Stolyarsky school in her native city, and with Kamilarov she had a hand in founding Bulgarian chamber ensembles, Collegium Musicum Bankya among them.