(http://www.klara.be/html/images/kew_logon_rood.gif)
http://www.concours-reine-elisabeth.be/en/concours/
Only for those who get excited over competitions:
Yesterday the semi-finals of this competition began .
You can listen and/or watch " en directe" : go to http://www.klara.be/, then click "Klara continuo" and "Beluister continuo".
24 candidates ( 5 Belgians ! that never happened before!) play a Mozart concerto (Orchestre de chambre de Wallonie /Paul Goodwin), and ,at a later moment a recital consisting of a "classic" from the repertoire and a new piece (Kris Defoort :Dedicatio VI) .
Arta Arnicane (Letland)
Lucas Blondeel (België)
Evgeny Brakhman (Rusland)
Jae-Won Cheung (Korea)
Zlata Chochieva (Rusland)
François Dumont (Frankrijk)
Julien Gernay (België)
Hisako Kawamura (Japan)
Nikolaas Kende (België)
Stanislav Khegay (Kazachstan)
Vadym Kholodenko (Oekraïne)
Sangyoung Kim (Korea)
Miyeon Lee (Korea)
Hyo-Sun Lim (Korea)
Plamena Mangova (Bulgarije)
Francesco Piemontesi (Zwitserland)
Ilya Rashkovskiy (Rusland)
Philippe Raskin (België)
Mariangela Vacatello (Italië)
Liebrecht Vanbeckevoort (België)
Anna Vinnitskaya (Rusland)
Mu Ye Wu (China)
Aiko Yajima (Japan)
Hong-Chun Youn (Korea)
12 will go through to the finale. They get a week to learn a new concerto ( written for the competition/composer still unknown), which they have to play with a well known concerto - plenty of Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Prokofiev and Tsjaikovsky...
(http://www.gva.be/dossiers/-k/Koningshuis/actua2000/img/konelisa.jpg) Queen Elisabeth of Belgium (née Elisabeth Gabrielle Valérie Marie von Wittelsbach 1876-1965) - quite character ,wife of King Albert 1. A gifted amateur artist ( she played the violin, did some sculpting etc.). She was in contact with poet Emile Verhaeren, with Albert Einstein, Prof.Picard (who went up into the stratosphere with a balloon;..), Eugène Ysaye etc. She traveled extensively .
Thanks for the link, Peter. This is one of the competitions I'm always interested in.
Maciek
Yes, ..but no Polish candidates !? how come?
Don't ask me! ;D
Don't know what state music schooling in Poland is in. I'm told that vocal training here is currently a disaster. Maybe something bad is happening to the instrumentalists as well?
I don't know anything at all about any of the performers, but based on their names alone, I'm rooting for
Evgeny Brakhman and Mariangela Vacatello. Superficial, yes, but fun ;D