Bruno Hock: Malaga's talented 16-year-old violinist

When the first chords began to play, silence fell. The constant stream of tourists going up and down the Alcazaba at ten o'clock on Friday morning slowed down. Whoever passed did so carefully, slowly, and many others stopped in the middle of the street to listen. None of them knew his name, they wouldn't even be able to give a title to what they heard, but they undoubtedly liked what they heard. It was Bruno Hock, a 16-year-old from Malaga, winner of the last edition of Canal Sur's TV talent show Tierra de Talento for his promising musical ability.

We asked him to play a piece for this interview at the foot of the Malaga fortress. He thought about it for a couple of seconds and began to play an improvised melody, followed by the jazz classic All the Things You Are, joined by part of the second movement of Bruch's Violin Concerto, and ending with Grieg's third Violin Sonata. Suddenly, as if nothing had happened. "In the Baroque period there was a lot of improvisation," he explained. Improvisation is also characteristic of jazz, a genre he has recently become fond of when playing the piano.

In Tierra de Talento, an audience hit on regional television that focuses on the arts, he demonstrated his ability with both instruments by switching naturally from the keys to the strings in his performance of Ojos Negros, a surprising versatility that was recognised by the expert jury.

But it was his Chopin's Nocturne, arranged by Pablo Sarasate, that won him the grand final of the competition. "I decided to take something slow, expressive and moving". And it worked. He admitted that at first he was not completely sure about entering the talent show, as his studies take up most of his time, but now he is happy with everything he has experienced.

It is one more experience in a short but intense career. The young Malaga native is now in the sixth year of Conservatorio Profesional Manuel Carra and is already thinking about the next stage at the Conservatorio Superior.

With a German father, a mother from Malaga and a natural command of the German language, going to study in Germany is a very viable option for him. "They have very high standards there, and the study and work environment is better," he said.

And he has also won prizes there. In June he won the Jugend Musiziert, a national competition in Germany, which held its final in the city of Wuppertal. He spent months studying the score he was to perform.

"These competitions involve a lot of preparation, you have to be very structured and very internalised. You can't take any risks, the competition is high," he said.

Until the time comes to make the leap to the Superior, Bruno Hock will continue his training in Malaga, where he began playing the violin at the age of seven, attracted by the "sweetness" of its sound. He is now perfecting his technique at the Galamian Academy, founded by musicians Anna Nilsen and Jesús Reina. She performed with him at the Teatro Cervantes in one of the concerts of the last edition of Málaga Clásica, the chamber music festival created by Reina and Nilsen. This type of support, he said, makes all the difference.

He is also a member of the Orquesta Joven de Andalucía (OJA), a training programme organised by the Junta de Andalucía which he has participated in for the last two years. In the last OJA concerts this summer, the teenager acted as concertmaster, the leader of the string section. "It's great to be growing and finding yourself there with such good musicians, with colleagues who work hard, where we all want to dedicate ourselves to this."

Bruno Hock has not the slightest doubt about this. "In a few years I don't know whether I'll be working in an orchestra, playing chamber music or even composing, but what is certain is that I'll be playing, which is what I'm passionate about," he said.

In order to succeed, he is aware that he has to sacrifice many hours that other young people of his age devote to leisure, but he doesn't mind.

"It's not something I struggle with - I don't feel I'm missing out on anything by studying." For him "there is no other option". "Studying and playing music is what fulfils me as a person, without music nothing would have the meaning it has," he said with total conviction.

From September, Hock will be studying the second year of the artistic baccalaureate at the Sierra Bermeja secondary school.

Bruno has just come back from a two-week advanced course in Granada and is now on holiday. He hadn't taken his violin out of its case for four days and, "when I picked it up yesterday it felt like it had been a long time. You have to study every single day". If he finds the time, he also composes: he is currently working on a concerto for cello and orchestra. "But my main focus is the violin," he said.