Eleven-year-old Australian violinist Christian Li is captured in this video coming to the dramatic end of Saint-Saëns’s Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso while suffering a nosebleed. 

The performance with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in a free outdoor concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl was conducted by Benjamin Northey, who steps in with a handkerchief to rescue the young soloist.

‘We had blood & magic all in front of 10,000+ Melburnians who love and appreciate their music and their orchestra,’ Northey wrote on Facebook.

‘Every now and again a concert comes up which truly has everything. Last night at the Myer Bowl with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was such a concert,’ Northey wrote, praising all the evening’s performers, including ‘a mind boggling MSO debut by 11 y.o. Aussie wunderkind violinist Christian Li’.

The Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso was written in 1863 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns as a showpiece for the most dazzling virtuoso violinist of the time, Pablo de Sarasate.

Christian Li came to the wider attention of the violin world in April 2018 when he took a joint first prize at the Menuhin Competition Junior Division, shared with 11-year-old Chloe Chua.

He started violin lessons aged five and currently studies with Robin Wilson, head of violin at the Australian National Music Academy in Melbourne.

The complete performance is avaible to listen to on the ABC website

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