- International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition
The International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition, named after Finnish composer
Jean Sibelius , is a competition for violinists up to age 30. It is held every five years (-00 and -05) inHelsinki and is considered to be one of the top 3 most appreciated violin competitions in the world. The first competition took place in year1965 , eight years after the passing of the composer. The competition is arranged byThe Sibelius Society of Finland .The competition has always had high-level competitors, and winners such as
Oleg Kagan ,Viktoria Mullova , andLeonidas Kavakos have become internationally performing soloists. The popularity amongst the players might be explained by the location of the competition:Finland connecting western Europe andUSSR was probably considered safe enough by the Soviet authority to allow players to attend the competition.The competition has three rounds: the first round, the second round, and the final round. After each round, a number of competitors are chosen to proceed to the next round, and after the final round the finalists are ranked. In the final ranking, the performance in each round is considered as a whole. To be accepted in the competition, candidates need to send a performance sample for a competition committee for pre-selection.
The first round program consists typically works of Bach, a sonata by Mozart, and Paganini's capriccios. It is said that Bach measures readiness, Mozart measures understanding of style, and Paganini measures technical ability. The second round, often referred as the semi-finals, consists typically of a sonata for violin and piano, few pieces by Sibelius, a modern Finnish piece, and a virtuoso piece. In the final round, the finalists perform two concertos accompanied by a full symphony orchestra. One of the concertos is mandated as the Violin Concerto in D minor by Sibelius.
In
2005 , 175 applications were received, 58 competitors were accepted of which 50 took part in the competition, 20 proceeded to the second round, and 8 were chosen to the final round.Laureates
1965
# Oleg Kagan, USSR
# Joshua Epstein, Israel
# Valeri Gradov, USSR 1970
# (ex aequo)Liana Isakadze , USSR & Pavel Kogan, USSR
# -
# Otto Armin, Canada 1975
# Yuval Yaron, Israel
# Ilja Grubert, USSR
# Eugen Sârbu, Romania 1980
#Viktoria Mullova , USSR
# Sergei Stadler, USSR
# Andres Cardenes, USA 1985
# (ex aequo)Ilya Kaler , USSR &Leonidas Kavakos , Greece
# -
#Vilmos Szabadi , Hungary 1990
# -
# Cristina Anghelescu, Romania
# (ex aequo) Sigrún Edvaldsdóttir, Iceland & Akiko Tanaka, Japan 1995
#Pekka Kuusisto , Finland
# Elisabeth Batiashvili, Georgia
# (ex aequo) Madoka Sato, Japan & Nikolaj Znaider, Denmark 2000
#Sergei Khachatryan , Armenia
# Natsumi Tamai, Japan
# (ex aequo) Zhi-Jiong Wang, China & Sayako Kusaka, Japan2005
# Alina Pogostkin, Germany
#Jiafeng Chen , China
# (ex aequo) Hyun-Su Shin, South Korea & Wei Wen, Chinaee also
*
List of classical music competitions
*World Federation of International Music Competitions External links
* The competition pages of
Finnish Broadcasting Company — http://www.yle.fi/teema/sibelius/
* The official competition pages — http://www2.siba.fi/sibeliuscompetition/
* The Sibelius Society of Finland — http://www.sibeliusseura.fi/
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