Argentine Ambassador and Violinist Meet Pope Francis

The audience was granted by official response from the Apostolic Nunciature to the Embassy of our country in Hungary, to receive the extraordinary Argentine violinist Pilar Policano accompanied by her mother Laura Minniti, her father Pablo Policano and her younger brother Julián, the Argentinian Embassy in Budapest says in a statement.

The family was accompanied by the Argentinean Ambassador and the audience took place at the Nunciature, in the presence of Pope Francis, the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Michael W. Banach and journalists from the Vatican press.

During the audience, the young violinist of only fifteen years old, who is currently studying in Vienna with the world-renowned professor Boris Kruschnir, performed in front of His Holiness a version of the tango of the Uruguayan composer Gerardo Matos Rodríguez "La Cumparsita" in its arrangement for solo violin, made by Vicente Zito, in Mendoza, Argentina.

The Holy Father and his assistants applauded passionately the performance and the Pope told the young violinist "you have a brilliant career ahead of you" while thanking her and her family for their presence.

It was the last and longest individual audience and a few minutes before Pope Francis left for Budapest Airport, as he passed Pilar Policano he put his arm out of the window, and made a thumbs-up gesture of approval and with an honest smile said to her for all to hear: "Bravo, Bravo," the statement concludes.