Several of the competition's past laureates, including Julia Fischer, Tasmin Little, and Nikolaj Znaider, have gone on to major international careers.

[4] The 2008 competition in Cardiff saw the world premiere of Welsh composer Mervyn Burtch's Elegy for King Arthur.

[5] The 2014 Austin, Texas competition included two world premieres of Texas-themed works: Donald Grantham's Black-eyed Suzy and Dan Welcher's The Cowboy and the Rattlesnake.

[6] The three commissioned works premiered at the 2016 London competition were John Rutter's Visions, Roxanna Panufnik's Hora Bessarabia and Òscar Colomina Bosch's Shpigl.

[1] The top four prizes in the Senior category were won by young violinists from China, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The competition took place for the first time in 1983 at Folkestone on the south coast of England and was based there for its first 15 years with Menuhin himself conducting master classes for the competitors.

Following a three-year gap after the 1995 competition, it resumed in 1998 at Boulogne-sur-Mer on the French side of the English Channel and returned to Folkestone in 2000.

[9] At the inauguration of the first competition, Yehudi Menuhin said:[10] Our young gifted violinists will be the ambassadors of goodwill, for they come with pure hearts and music in their souls.

[20] Past jury members have included American violinist Pamela Frank, Maxim Vengerov, Dong-Suk Kang, Arabella Steinbacher, Ray Chen, Jeremy Menuhin, Julia Fischer, and Tasmin Little.