A HIGHLY COMPETITIVE YEAR
As 2018 gets into full swing, we take a look at the major World Federation of International Music Competitions events that are taking place at venues across the globe over the next few months
Journalists, educators, concert promoters and members of the World Federation of International Music Competitions gathered in London in February for the press launch of the Federation’s 62nd General Assembly, scheduled to take place at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire in Glasgow from 5-8 April.
The meeting, held at the Caledonian Club, announced details of the Glasgow event’s agenda, including its programme of plenary sessions and closing-day excursion for Federation members. Its General Assembly is set to reflect the organisation’s growing reach and reinforce its role in promoting the highest standards in music competitions worldwide.
Such standards will doubtless be in evidence at the Orléans International Piano Competition, which takes place from 8-18 March. Forward thinking and innovation are guaranteed at this groundbreaking event which, since its first edition in 1994, has set its repertoire focus exclusively on works written after 1900 – an approach that has attracted entries from young musicians open to new music and adventurous programming. It has created a fund to support what it describes as ‘the birth of the next generation of artists’, providing financial assistance for prestigious concert tours, masterclasses, recordings and other career development opportunities. Orléans has helped laureates record everything from new works by Matthias Pintscher and Olga Neuwirth to music for piano and electronics by Jonathan Harvey, John Cage, Pierre Jodlowski, Luc Ferrari and Luigi Nono.
Talking of Nono, viola jokes will definitely be a ‘no no’ when the Primrose International Viola Competition takes place at the Colburn School in Los Angeles from 10-16 June. This event, founded in 1979 by the American Viola Society, has flourished in the four years since it came under the care of the Colburn School and its president and CEO Sel Kardan. Membership of the Federation, he notes, has played a significant part in the widening of the competition’s international reach and raising its profile as a landmark event for the viola profession. Kardan and his Colburn colleagues have also worked hard to connect Los Angeles concertgoers to the competition, part of the process of introducing solo viola to new audiences and challenging old views about the instrument.
Violinists, cellists and string chamber groups, meanwhile, will head to Harbin for the Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition this summer. Its fourth edition, based in China’s far northeast, runs from
18-30 July. ‘The competition is relatively new to our audience,’ notes Schoenfeld competition director of operations Yeung-ping Chan. ‘People here see what we do as a rare international event. It’s meaningful because of that. They want to know more about the music and can see how the competition is helping to revitalise the city’s cultural landscape.’
And now down to the lowest strings. Ludwigslust and its former royal palace, the ‘Versailles of the North’, is the place for young double-bassists to be from 22-29 July.
The north German town, around 70 miles from Hamburg, is gearing up for the tenth International JM Sperger Competition for Double Bass, a biennial event inspired by and dedicated to the work of the eponymous 18th-century bass virtuoso. Contestants begin by playing two contrasting movements from one of four Sperger sonatas and a new work by jury member Emil Tabakov; repertoire recommendations for subsequent rounds span the gamut from Bach and Bottesini to Tubin and Vasks. Former laureates include Gunars Upatnieks and Michael Karg, who are now colleagues in the Berlin Philharmonic.
September is a notably busy time for Federation members, and even the most determined of competition followers would struggle to catch the finals of the month’s
The Federation promotes the highest standards in competitions worldwide
main prizes. The Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Canada, and the 52nd International Singing Competition of Toulouse both name their winners on 8 September, while the International Organ Competition ‘Grand Prix de Chartres’ (France), and the International Edvard Grieg Competition in Bergen (Norway), are set to swell the laureate list the following day. The Princess Astrid International Music Competition – long established in Trondheim, Norway, but only a recent addition to the Federation’s membership books – concludes on 13 September. The rush continues two days later with the finals of the Leeds International Piano Competition and the 52nd International Singing Competition of ’s-hertogenbosch (Holland), and again on 16 September at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Munich’s ARD International Music Competition and Bucharest’s George Enescu International Competition crown the sequence respectively on 21 and 23 September.
Lower Saxony in Germany is ready to receive visiting music industry professionals, from leading journalists and managers to conductors and concert promoters, for the next Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hannover from 11-27 October.
Its past laureates include Antje Weithaas, 2IQERNE 6EHYPSZMǶ 2I[ =SVO 4LMPLEVQSRMG concertmaster Frank Huang, rising stars Sergei Dogadin and Alexandra Conunova-dumortier and many others who are making their way as concerto soloists, chamber musicians or orchestral leaders. The Joseph Joachim’s appeal to top-flight contestants lies as much in its attention to detail and reputation for fairness as in a heavyweight prize package comprising international concert dates, introductions to artist managers and a CD recording with orchestra.
Professor Krzysztof Wegrzyn, founder and artistic director of the Joseph Joachim Competition, launched the event’s first edition in 1991. As a former violin competition laureate, he knew the pros and cons of competitive music-making and wanted to create a structure that placed young musicians at his competition’s heart. He set the inaugural event’s first prize at DM50,000 (£17,000), double that of any other international competition, and continued the trend the following decade by raising the stakes to 50,000 (£44,000). ‘I knew that young musicians could not expect to be paid as much as footballers or tennis players,’ he recalls. ‘But they experience similar psychological pressures, so you can never support them enough.’
Paris was under enemy occupation when a group of young musicians, including the pianist Samson François and violinist Michèle Auclair, entered the first ever Marguerite Long-jacques Thibaud Competition in 1943.
The event survived the war years to become a founding member of the Federation and launch the careers of such outstanding international artists as Aldo Ciccolini, Jean-philippe Collard, Christian Ferras, Peter Frankl, Pascal Rogé and Vladimir Spivakov. Its reach broadened in 2011 when, in tribute to the great French soprano Régine Crespin, it opened its doors to singers as well as pianists and violinists. Rebranded as the Long-thibaud-crespin International Competition, it has been revitalised under its board of directors, including former violin prize laureate and jury president Rénaud Capuçon.
The next Long-thibaud-crespin Competition, for violinists up to the age of 30, starts with the first of two eliminatory rounds on 2 November and concludes with the concerto finals on 9 and 10 November. Those who make it to Paris for the competition proper will have survived a series of pre-selection rounds, to be held during May in London, Paris, Amsterdam,
Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo and New York. Their progress will depend on performances of a set list of works selected from the core of the recital and concerto repertoire, judged by Capuçon and jury team comprising violinists including Alena Baeva, Kolja Blacher, James Ehnes, Jean-jacques Kantorow and Maxim Vengerov, plus Verbier Festival founder Martin T:son Engstroem and conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier.
Since being upgraded to city status in 1911, Hamamatsu has become a powerhouse of
Japan’s industrial base, known worldwide for its production of musical instruments and motorcycles. The biennial Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, launched in 1991 to mark the city’s 80th birthday, celebrates its tenth edition from 7-25 November with an event open to 100 competitors. The Londonbased Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa, whose international performing career soared after her prize-winning performance in the 1987 Leeds International Competition, will make her debut as the Hamamatsu’s jury chair.
‘Hamamatsu is the perfect place for a piano competition and, being the birthplace of all “made in Japan” pianos, we naturally have a wealth of excellent instruments to support all competitors’ needs,’ Ogawa observes.
‘Every piano will be carefully maintained by skilled technicians around the clock. That level of service and dedication, together with Japanese hospitality, means we can promise every competitor a memorable experience.’ Many of the competition’s contestants will give concerts in the community during their stay in Hamamatsu. ‘My greatest ambition,’ declares Ogawa, ‘is that this competition will help many pianists fly high in their careers.’
‘This competition will LIPT QER] TMERMWXW ¾] high in their careers’