The latest news from the classical music world
South Korean baritone dazzles this year’s jury with Rossini, Wagner and Giordano
Gihoon Kim has been crowned the winner of BBC Cardi Singer of the World 2021. The 29-year-old South Korean baritone won over this year’s judging panel with performances of arias from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, accompanied by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Andrew Litton.
Kim competed against an otherwise all-female line-up: English mezzo-soprano Claire Barnett-jones, Austrian soprano Christina Gansch, Georgian mezzo Natalia Kutateladze and South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Ranwanasha, who won the competition’s Song Prize earlier in the week with moving renditions of Lieder, South African songs and spirituals.
Speaking to presenter Josie d’arby a er he le the stage, Kim said he was ‘50 per cent happy, 50 per cent disappointed’ with his performance, so when head judge Aidan Lang, general director of the Welsh National Opera, called his name as the winner, he asked, ‘Is this real? I am speechless.’ He receives the £20,000 prize and Cardi Trophy, following in the footsteps of other famous baritones whose careers were launched by BBC Cardi Singer, not least Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Bryn Terfel and the competition’s most recent winner, Andrei Kymach, who took home the top prize in 2019.
The 31-year-old mezzo-soprano Claire Barnett-jones from Taunton in Somerset won this year’s Dame Joan Sutherland
Audience Prize, voted for by those watching on TV. Her path to this year’s competition was an unexpected one, having been asked to step in the night before the preliminary rounds began. Another contestant, the Icelandic soprano Ál ei ur Erla Gu mundsdóttir, had been notified by the NHS Track and Trace app to self-isolate, so Barnett-jones was invited to join as the o cial reserve.
This year’s BBC Cardi Singer of the World final took place in St David’s Hall in Cardi , but without the usual audience. The competition will return in 2023 with anniversary celebrations, marking 40 years since it first launched.
This year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours have provided a rich haul for classical music, including a Damehood for pianist Imogen Cooper (above). Also heading to Buckingham Palace in their finest garb in the near future will be cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, composer Eleanor Alberga and Michael Volpe, founder of Opera Holland Park (OBE), plus saxophonist Jess Gillam, composer Huw Watkins, horn player Sarah Willis and tenor Allan Clayton (MBE).
The first ever Festival Ravel, celebrating the great French composer, is set to take place from 22 August to 10 September in the Nouvelle-aquitaine region in south-west France. With Ravel’s birthplace of Ciboure as its hub, the new festival will be co-directed by pianists Bertrand Chamayou and Jeanfrançois Heisser.