Upbeat: Highly strung

THE RISE of alarmingly young solo violinists continues. Daishin Kashimoto, who this month became the junior laureate of the Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition, is 14, and took his award by playing the virtuoso D minor concerto by Wieniawski, which he learnt in less than a fortnight. During March he discovered he had been preparing the wrong piece. The international faxes flew - he is studying in Lubeck, but his teacher was in Sweden - and fingerings and other details were thrashed out just in time.

Senior prizes in the Folkestone- based competition went to a relative veteran, of 21: Gabriela Demeterova, from Prague, took first prize in all three stages and a separate Unaccompanied Bach Prize. Fifty participants were chosen from 166 applicants.