Thomas won the silver medal today at the competition. OF course we are both happy for this but the only thing that kept him from winning gold (according to the judges notes, his teacher and a professor of music at UMO) was that Thomas rushed the second half of Czardas. BUT.....his teacher got so angry at Thomases piano  accompanist because he skipped 4 measure and Thomas had to play catch up so they would end at the same time. I felt so bad for him and he felt even worse because he did what any violinist would have done in that same circumstance, but was demoted for it. Nothing we could have done, he either would have ended later than the pianist or rush to catch up. Anyway ....next year but in the meantime, second place out of 84 contestants is nuthin to sneeze at. Here are a couple pix and a video of him practicing part of Schindlers List a few minutes before going out. All the people in one of the photos(his teacher and accompanists)he now calls his "posse", hahahhaa.