Winners were recently announced for competitions in New York and Canada: the 2012 Concert Artist Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2012 Honens International Piano Competition. For this year’s competition of the Concert Artists Guild—an arts service organization that discovers, nurtures, and promotes young musicians—the winners are cellist Jay Campbell (23), pianist Steven Lin (23), the Houston-based woodwind quintet WindSync, and the Lysander Piano Trio. The winners, announced at the competition finals in New York City on October 18, each join the CAG artist roster and receive two-year management contracts. The panel of thirteen judges for the competition this year included guitarist Sharon Isbin; Stuart Malina, music director of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Florida Orchestra; William Boughton, music director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra; Kirk Muspratt, music director of the Northwest Indiana Symphony; and Limor Tomer, director of concerts and lectures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The winner of this year’s Honens competition is 23-year-old Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov, who receives $100,000 and an artistic- and career-development package valued at $500,000. Kolesnikov was chosen from a group of five finalists who performed on October 25 and 26 in Calgary, Canada: Lorenzo Cossi (Italy), Maria Mazo (Russia), Jong-Hai Park (South Korea), and Eric Zuber (U.S.), who each received $10,000. Honens semi-finalist Zenan Yu (China) also received the competition’s $2,500 Raeburn Prize for An Artist of Special Promise.
Posted November 8, 2012
