Pablo Casals International Cello Competition at the Liszt Academy

As Mária Liszkay, general secretary of the competition said in the press conference held in Budapest, for the last ten years the cello has not been featured in the Budapest International Music Competitions series, which makes this contest especially due and welcome, as it is indicated by the great number of applicants, too. The preliminaries and semifinals will take place in the Sir Georg Solti Chamber Hall of the Liszt Academy, while The Grand Hall will host the opening concert, the finals and the gala concert. The cellists have to perform the required and chosen pieces in solo in the first round, with piano in the second round, and with orchestra accompaniment in the finals. Among the mandatory pieces are the compositions of Bach, Ligeti, Popper and Kodály, along with the cello/violin sonatas of Brahms, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Chopin and Debussy, while the list of optional pieces for the finals include the works of Dvořak and Schumann, Haydn's Cello Concerto in D major, Shostakovich's 1^st Cello Concerto and Variations on a Rococo Theme by Tchaikovsky. All rounds are open to the general public.

Besides the nearly twenty Hungarian competitors, many applications have come from Korea, Japan and France but the competition also expects participants from Venezuela, Uzbekistan and Lithuania.  From the experience of the past years it can be anticipated that not all applicants will actually show up at the competition, which the organizers almost "hope" will be the case this year, so that there is less pressure on the jury due to the large number of participants. The first three winners of the contest will receive a prize money of 8,000, 6,000 and 4,000 euros respectively, in addition to which several domestic and international institutions, festivals and concert organizers have offered special awards and contracts.

The co-presidents of the international jury are Marta Casals Istomin, the widow of the legendary cellist Pablo Casals and a prominent figure in the musical and cultural life of the USA, together with Csaba Onczay, Kossuth Prize winning cellist, winner of the 1973 Pablo Casals International Cello Competition in Budapest. Further members of the jury include Julius Berger from Germany, Emilio Colon from the USA, Philippe Müller from France and László Fenyő and Tamás Mérei from Hungary. (László Fenyő became the winner of the international cello competition also bearing the name of Pablo Casals held in Kronberg in 2004, while Tamás Mérei earned third prize in the Dávid Popper International Cello Competition organized in Budapest in the same year.)

The Pablo Casals International Cello Competition will be framed by an opening and closing concert in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy: the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra led by Zoltán Kocsis will open the competition inviting the renowned cellist Miklós Perényi on 4 September 2014, while the gala concert on 13 September 2014 will be performed by the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by János Kovács featuring the competition prize winners. The Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra will also provide accompaniment to the competitors in the two-part finals on 12 September. The enrolled students of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music may attend the events of the cello competition in the Grand Hall by occupying the student balcony according to last year's order, or the untaken seats on the main floor. We shall shortly inform our students on the possibilities to visit the rounds held in the Sir Georg Solti Chamber Hall as well.

Only a few days after the Pablo Casals International Cello Competition, on 15 September 2014, the music palace on Liszt Ferenc Square will host the I. International Éva Marton Singing Competition, the first major competition to be organized by the Liszt Academy itself.

MTI/zeneakademia.hu