The 2016 Chengdu Guangya Violin Invitational Competition started on Monday at the Music Hall of the Sichuan Conservatory of Music in Chengdu, capital city of Southwest China's Sichuan province.

Sponsored by the Sichuan Provincial Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Chengdu Municipal Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Sichuan Conservatory of Music and the Guangya School in Dujiangyan, Sichuan, the five-day competition has attracted 14 contestants from China, Austria, Britain and Germany.

Members of the judging panel include top-notch violinists, violin instructors and musicians from China, the United States, Germany and Israel, according to Qing Guangya, chairman of the competition.

The competition, which has been held five times, is a name card of art for Chengdu, contributing to its efforts of becoming a music city, Qing said.

The five-day competition in 2015 attracted 26 contestants from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Germany, Japan, Poland, the Czech Republic and Israel.

After three rounds, Olga Roubkova from the Czech Republic and Dang Lihua from the Chinese mainland shared first prize. Third prize went to Daichi Nakamura from Japan.

The violin is very important in Sichuan province, which was introduced to China thanks to Chinese musicians like Wang Guangqi (1891-1936), Qing said.

A native of Wenjiang County in Sichuan, Wang got his doctorate at the University of Bonn in Germany.

In 1980, Hu Kun, a native of Chengdu, became the first Chinese to win an international violin competition in Finland.