The Board of Directors of the Foundation is delighted to announce that Daria Schibitcaia has won this year’s Walter Prystawski Prize as the overall top candidate in our awards competition.

Daria Schibitcaia, violin
Toronto, Ontario

Moldovan-born violinist Daria Schibițcaia, winner of the International Music Competition “Made in Ukraine”, has performed across Canada, Switzerland, China, Germany, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, and Belgium. At 17, she made her solo debut with the Moldavian National Symphony Orchestra, performing Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 after being invited to represent Moldova at the 12th Youth Delphic Games of the CIS Member States in Russia.

In 2024, Daria won the University of Toronto Concerto Competition with Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2. She is also a laureate of the Glenn Gould School Chamber Competition and the SHEAN Strings Competition, as well as a recipient of the Award of Excellence from the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. Her artistic journey has been profoundly enriched by masterclasses and collaborations with esteemed artists including Zakhar Bron, Mihaela Martin, Ida Kavafian, Stéphanie-Marie Degand, and Vilmos Szabadi.

Festival appearances include Domaine Forget de Charlevoix, the Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival—where her piano trio toured Newfoundland—and two seasons with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. In 2025, she was selected to participate in both the Menuhin Academy and Rencontres Musicales Camerata Lysy in Switzerland. That same year, she performed in Toronto’s Luminato Festival, under the artistic direction of Aaron Schwebel, concertmaster of the National Ballet Orchestra of Canada.

Equally dedicated to orchestral music, Daria joined the Moldavian National Symphony Orchestra at 18 and has since performed with the National Opera and Ballet Orchestra as well as the Moldavian and Romanian Youth Orchestras. During her studies, she held concertmaster positions with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra, Glenn Gould School New Music Ensemble, University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. Most recently, in May 2025, she was selected as Assistant Concertmaster of the NextGen Symphony at the Tianjin Juilliard Orchestral Symposium in China.

A graduate of the Phil and Eli Taylor Academy at The Royal Conservatory, Daria studied with the late Victor Danchenko. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, where she was awarded the Lorand Fenyves Scholarship and the Gerhard Kander Graduating Award for Violin. She is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at the Glenn Gould School of Music, studying with Erika Raum and Barry Shiffman as a Temerty Fellow.

In the summer of 2025, Daria will be taking part in the Fiskars Orchestra and Chamber Music Festival in Finland. She is deeply honoured to be supported by the Sylva Gelber Foundation, whose generosity continues to enable and inspire her artistic journey.