After the preliminary selection
60 young violinists from all over the world compete at the 10th International LOUIS SPOHR Competition in Weimar
After the preliminary selection, about half of the 113 applications in three age categories have made it: a total of 60 candidates from 20 different countries from Australia to Croatia have been invited to the 10th International LOUIS SPOHR Competition for Young Violinists in Weimar.
From 26 October to 4 November 2022 at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar, the participants will be put to the vote of a ten-member international jury chaired by Weimar violin professor Dr. Friedemann Eichhorn.
The competition will begin with the first round from 27 to 29 October in the Festsaal Fürstenhaus and the Saal Am Palais. All rounds are open to the public. Admission is free!
The third round of the competition (2/3 November) with the university orchestra in the Great Hall of the Music High School Schloss Belvedere will also be broadcast live on www.hfm-weimar.de.
Depending on age, the required pieces include Telemann fantasies, Bach partitas, Paganini caprices, a Spohr scherzo and Carmen fantasies by Pablo de Sarasate or Franz Waxman. In the final round of judging, the participants will play violin concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Max Bruch and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, depending on the category.
There are prizes and special prizes worth a total of more than 17,000 euros as well as follow-up concerts to be won.
At the prize-winners' concert on Friday, 4 November at 7:30 pm in the Weimarhalle, the prize-winning participants will perform with the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Prof. Nicolás Pasquet.
Since its foundation in the 1990s, the Weimar Spohr Competition has developed into one of the most internationally renowned addresses for young string players. The violinists from 20 countries around the world compare their skills, meet like-minded people, make contacts and friendships.
The competition has also become an important career springboard. Former prize winners were later successful at the ARD Music Competition, the "Leopold Mozart" Competition or the Tchaikovsky Competition. Many hold important orchestral positions today, e.g. as concertmasters of the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich or the Philharmonia Orchestra London.
Louis Spohr was the "German Paganini", a true devil violinist. And not only that: Spohr (1784-1859) also composed like the wind, wrote nearly 300 works, many of which are on the music stands of the international violin world. The fifteen violin concertos, ten symphonies, thirty-six string quartets and numerous operas and oratorios by the versatile concertmaster, conductor, music festival organiser and pedagogue are an indispensable part of the repertoire.
From 1822 onwards, young violinists from all over Europe made a pilgrimage to his master workshop in Kassel to learn from the famous "Spohr violin school". Spohr worked as a musician and bandmaster in Gotha, Erfurt and Nordhausen - and thus wrote an important chapter in Thuringian music history.
More information: www.hfm-weimar.de/spohr
[25 August, 2022]