Our task is to form veritable talents who possess the necessary gifts to become masters, without attending to the ungifted mediocrity.

Liszt to Giovanni Sgambati

Liszt Academy announces the 6th Éva Marton International Singing Competition

8 January 2024

Liszt Academy as organiser await applications from young singers aspiring to international recognition. The competition will take place in early September 2024 with a total prize fund of seventy thousand euros. 

The live rounds of the grand and now globally prestigious event, including the preliminary and semifinal rounds, as well as the final and gala concert, will take place from September 1 to 8, 2024. Thanks to online broadcasting, the competition can be followed from every corner of the world. In addition to the usual awards, the most outstanding competitors will receive numerous special prizes, including concert invitations and scholarships.

Applicants aged 18-32 for ladies and 18-35 for gentlemen can register for pre-selection until May 13, 2024, on the competition's website. As part of this process, they are required to upload a video recording of a self-selected aria from the Baroque period and another from a different era, performed with piano or orchestral accompaniment, as well as an excerpt from an oratorio or cantata. The pre-selection jury led by Éva Marton will make decisions based on the submitted materials, and the selected participants can expect information from the competition secretariat in early June.

The international jury of the competition, supported jointly by the MOL New Europe Foundation and the National Cultural Fund, is chaired by Prof. Emer. Éva Marton. Once again, the prestigious panel includes Hungarian and international luminaries from the opera world: Miguel Lerín, one of the most influential Spanish artistic managers; Peter Mario Katona, casting director at the Royal Opera House in London; Anatoli Goussev, a Ukrainian-born tenor and voice coach residing and working in Italy; Christina Scheppelmann, a German musical manager and former artistic director of the Liceu Opera House in Barcelona, currently serving as the General Director of Seattle Opera; Vittorio Terranova, Italian tenor; Dmitrij Vdovin, Director of the Bolshoi Theater Youth Opera Program; Andrea Meláth, mezzo-soprano and Head of the Department of Vocal ad Opera Studies at the Liszt Academy; and Szilveszter Ókovács, Director General of the Hungarian State Opera.

The detailed competition announcement and information related to the application process can be found on the martoncompetition.hu portal. The online application interface will open on January 16th on that website.

The Éva Marton International Singing Competition, held biennially, continues to attract an increasing number of talented artists and garners significant attention abroad. For the 2022, fifth edition, 132 young singers from 38 countries applied, and the event gained admission to the World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC) in 2018.