Andreja at a concert

Me at a concert with a friend from Zagreb, Ferenc Palinko, a violin player. 

Ferenc Palinko was born in Zrenjanin, Serbia. He went to Gerany where he became a concert conductor and a trader. We first had a concert in Zrenjanin which was his wish. We played three sonates from Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms.  It was very nice and well visited. We played after that in Prijepolje, the same concert at House of Culture “Sveti Sava”. That was among the last concerts which I performed. 

I started to study piano, with my cousin Elza Podvinec, when I was just five years old. I loved to play so there was no need for anyone to force me. In Zagreb I went first to the preparatory, then the lower school and in the end  to the secondary school of the Zagreb Croatian Music Institute with Prof. Sidonija Gajger. I passed the graduation exams and the test for music teachers. At the age of 13, I was a child prodigy when I performed Liszt's opera, Faust. When we returned to Zagreb, the apartment we had lived in before had been liquidated and we did not have an apartment so we moved into the shop on Jelacicev Square-an apartment without a bathroom. We lived there from 1919-1925. We had a piano, which my cousin Piroska and I shared. She is also a pianist and finished the Zagreb Music Academy. She was a piano professor. We always played together and shared the same piano. When we divided up the house she got the piano, so that I practiced at her place. Piroska did not give public concerts she was exclusively a professor.