Éva Marton Singing Competition Reveals Live Round Contestants
One hundred and five singers have been invited to the live rounds of the Liszt Academy of Music’s Éva Marton International Singing Competition, the academy announced on Thursday.
A total of 265 young applicants from 40 countries submitted video recordings for the seventh edition of the competition, organized by the Liszt Academy and offering over €70,000 in prize money. The preliminary jury is headed by Éva Marton, co-founder of the Friends of Hungary Foundation (publisher of news portals Hungary Today and Ungarn Heute). Besides her, the jury consists of Kossuth Prize-winning opera singer Péter Fried, a faculty member at the Liszt Academy, and conductor Kálmán Szennai. They now decided who would receive invitations to the live rounds.
Éva Marton. Photo: Hungary Today
Many of the selected 105 young singers are returning contestants, and four were finalists in one of the previous competitions. The largest group in the field is sopranos, with 39 contestants. They are joined by 19 mezzo-sopranos, 19 tenors, 19 baritones/bass-baritones, and 9 basses.
By nationality, the largest number of advancing contestants are Korean, with 29 singers. Seven Hungarians will participate, alongside competitors from China, Russia, Poland, the United States, Norway, Brazil, Italy, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, and Türkiye.
The live rounds of the event will take place between August 31 and September 6. The preliminary round, semi-final, and final will be held at the Liszt Academy, while the gala concert will take place at the Opera House. The competition will also be streamed online.
As is tradition, contestants in the preliminary rounds will be required to perform a song by Franz Liszt. In the final and gala concert, they will perform accompanied by the orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera under the baton of Kálmán Szennai.
In addition to the main prizes, numerous special awards — including performance opportunities — will also be presented.
The international jury will be chaired by Éva Marton. Other members include Spanish artistic manager Miguel Lerín; Peter Mario Katona, casting director of London’s Royal Opera House; Ukrainian-born tenor and vocal coach Anatoli Goussev, who lives and works in Italy; Italian tenor Vittorio Terranova; Dmitrij Vdovin, director of the youth opera program at the Bolshoi Theater; mezzo-soprano Andrea Meláth, head of the Vocal Department at the Liszt Academy; and Szilveszter Ókovács, director-general of the Hungarian State Opera.
Joining the jury as a new member is Turkish-German mezzo-soprano Deniz Uzun, winner of the Éva Marton Special Prize at the 2021 competition.
Fact
The Éva Marton International Singing Competition has been organized biennially by the Liszt Academy of Music since 2014. Due to the pandemic, the fourth competition was held in 2021, instead of 2020. Since 2018, the event has been a part of the World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC). The competition is attracting more and more young singers: in 2022, 132 young talents from all over the world applied for the fifth competition, while in 2024, 196 candidates applied.
Prizes worth a total of more than €75,000 were awarded at the 2024 competition. Fifty-six contestants advanced to the live round of the sixth edition of the competition, with 12 competing in the final. The first prize of 30,000 euros went to Korean tenor Park Jihoon, the second prize of 20,000 euros to Romanian baritone Mihai Damian and the third prize of 10,000 euros to Chinese mezzo-soprano Wu Hongni. Éva Marton awarded the special prize of 10,000 euros, courtesy of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, to Russian soprano Alexandra Zotova, while the audience prize went to Korean soprano Yeo Yeeun.
Éva Marton International Singing Competition 2024. Photo: Liszt Academy/László Mudra
Via MTI, Featured image: Liszt Academy/László Mudra
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المصدر: Hungary Today
