The Sphinx Competition has announced that the winner of its 15th annual concerto competition is cellist Gabriel Cabezas, age 19, who won first place in the Senior Division as well as the competition’s inaugural Audience Choice Award. Second place went to cellist Francisco Vila, third place to violist Danielle Wiebe, and fourth place to violinist Rainel Joubert. Violinist Ade Williams, 14, was awarded first place in the Junior Division. The winners were chosen at the finals concert, which took place on February 12 at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan after relocating from Orchestra Hall following an underground explosion the morning of the finals concert. A broadcast of this concert will be available on demand at www.dptv.org. Cabezas and Williams will perform solo concerts with orchestras worldwide, as well as receive scholarships and prizes. The Sphinx Competition—open to middle-school, high-school, and college-age black and Latin string players from the U.S.—is a program of the Sphinx Organization, established in 1996 by Aaron Dworkin to increase black and Latino participation in the field of classical music, bring music education to underserved communities, and to promote the creation, performance, and preservation of works by black and Latino composers.
Posted February 22, 2012
