On October 15, at the invitation of the 2023 Shenzhen Belt & Road International Music Festival, Vadim Repin, one of the world's most popular violinists, together with pianist Svetlana Smolina, performed three most representative violin sonatas by Debussy, Grieg and Franck at Shenzhen Concert Hall for the audience from Pengcheng (known as Shenzhen). The passion and tenderness flowing between the bowstrings filled the hearts of the audience. Long after the last note, the audience was never less enthusiastic, resulting in the players back to the stage twice for continued performance. 

Vadim Repin, a violin virtuoso, became the youngest winner in the Queen Elizabeth International Violin Competition, the most prestigious and highest demanding violin competition in the world, when he was 17. In 2010, he was even awarded the Ordre des Victoires Honorees and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's highest honors for his contribution to music. Lang Lang invited him to co-perform his debut chamber music album, which won the German ECHO Klassik. In 2015, Vadim Repin was awarded the title of Honorary Professor by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Repin's performance in Shenzhen, catering to the theme of his concert Top of the String, took the audience on a journey to the pinnacle of the art of music. 

The concert features Debussy's Violin Sonata in G Minor, Grieg's Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Minor and Franck's Violin Sonata in A Major. The above three pieces were composed when the composers were mature in their technique. Although they have their own styles of musical language, beyond the technique, they are full of thoughts and emotions. 

Violin Sonata in G Minor was the last work created by Debussy, also his only violin sonata. In this work, the Debussy-style musical language is presented and fascinated to be more abstract and refined, running over with the impressionistic "foggy landscape". Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Minor is a masterpiece of Grieg's attainments in twenty years. The work brims with Norwegian folk music colors, although simple and rustic in technique, but deep and vast in thoughts and emotions. In the second half of the concert, Repin presented Franck's Violin Sonata in A Major, which is known by characterizing the expression of emotion. The composer dedicated this work to Ysaye, a Belgian violinist, as a wedding gift, in which the violin and the piano "chatting" and "matching" with each other like a pair of lovers, benefiting each other beautifully.

Repin performed with brows sometimes knitted tensely while othertimes stretched with ease. Emotions, accompanied by a rapid and frenzied, gentle and melodious music that varies silkily between dreariness and joy. 

At the end of the performance, amidst the long acclaims, Repin came back to the stage twice, presenting two extra masterpieces. The first was Tchaikovsky's Lensky Aria, "O Youth, O Youth", selected from his opera Eugene Onegin, which led the audience into the peak of love written by Pushkin. The second was Tchaikovsky's Valse-Scherzo. It started off directly expressing the minds, shifted from jubilation to melancholy, then back to be vivacious, and ended with a fervent melody. The whole concert was a great success, with a variety of difficult playing techniques bringing in burst of musical climaxes.

Svetlana Smolina, a skilled pianist, and Vadim Repin joined hands to present these famous works in this performance. The duo has been touring together since 2014, with concerts held at the Siberian Arts Festival and in Washington, D.C., London and New York.