132 singers apply for Liszt Academy’s 5th Éva Marton International Singing Competition
Entries came from 38 countries around the world, from North and South America to the Far East and New Zealand.
On 25 April at midnight the deadline expired for hopefuls to submit two videos to the competition's online entry form. The previous, 4th round of the biennial singing competition was postponed from 2020 to last year due to the pandemic.
Despite the shorter time window, 60 male and 72 female singers from 38 countries entered. Sopranos make up the most numerous group again, there are 58 of them, and once again there are four countertenors among the applicants. 19 applicants have already tried before, two of them compete for the third time.
The highest number of applicants, 25 are from the Republic of Korea, but there were also, for example, 6 applications from the United States, three from Brazil, and even one each from Canada, Mexico and New Zealand. There are also 15 Hungarian entrants. The Russian-Ukrainian war this year has broken the tradition of many entries from these countries. Although Russian and Ukrainian citizens did apply, there were only 16, most of them live abroad (e.g. in Switzerland) and submitted their applications from outside Russia or Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the Éva Marton International Singing Competition, as a member of the WFIMC (International Federation of Music Competitions) agrees with the official statement of the Federation that "(...) It is the responsibility of the WFIMC to prevent the instrumentalization of young musicians. With this in mind, we strongly recommend and ask our member organisations not to discriminate against and exclude any young and gifted artists from participating in their competitions. (...)"
Further details: https://martoncompetition.hu/news/statement-of-the-wfimc-regarding-russian-and-belarussian-candidates-123612
The preliminary jury, chaired by ks. Éva Marton, will decide in a few weeks who will make it to the live rounds, which will take place between 4 and 11 September. The result of the decision will be published on the competition website, martoncompetition.hu, by 20 May 2022 and will be communicated to concerned contestants by email.