Vesko Eschkenazy

First concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra since January 2000, appointed at thirty, Vesko Eschkenazy came to the post from the leaders' chairs of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and the Netherlands Philharmonic. Born in 1970 into a family of musicians, he had his first lessons at four and was leading Vladi Simeonov's youth philharmonic at eleven; he studied with Angelina Atanassova and Petar Hristoskov at the Lyubomir Pipkov National Music School and the Pancho Vladigerov State Academy in Sofia, and in 1990 left for London and a two-year master's course for solo performers with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School. He is a laureate of the Wieniawski competition in Poznań, the Carl Flesch in London in 1988 and the China International in Beijing. His Concertgebouw solo debut came in 1997 in the Beethoven concerto, and he has returned as soloist many times since, directing the Four Seasons from his own desk in June 2014. He has played with Caballé, Domingo, Bashmet and Rostropovich, under Jansons, Haitink, Chailly, Masur, Colin Davis, Giulini and Emil Tchakarov. Since 1995 he has formed a sonata duo with the pianist Ludmil Angelov. He records for Pentatone, was voted musician of the year in Bulgaria in 2010, and plays a Guarneri del Gesù of 1742. The 1742 instrument is the ex-Silverstein Guarneri del Gesù, made available by a private patron through the Concertgebouworkest Foundation. He appears in full as Vesko Panteleev-Eschkenazy, and a Szymanowski First Concerto in Amsterdam drew the Telegraaf headline of November 2000. With the orchestra he has played the Mozart A major under Jansons, the Dvořák under Colin Davis, the Barber under Jaap van Zweden and the Bruch G minor in January 2012. In 2009 he worked repeatedly with his brother, the conductor Martin Panteleev; he was artist in residence at Bulgaria Hall in 2010-11, and formed a duo with the pianist Marieta Petkova in 2012-13.