Jury

Giuseppe Acquaviva

Giuseppe Acquaviva studied violin at the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali Pietro Mascagni in Livorno. He graduated from Arts, Music, and Theatre at the Faculty of Philosophy and Philology of the University of Bologna and received his master’s degree from the Università Catolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. His conducting debut took place in 2006 in Amsterdam in a concert with the Puccini Festival orchestra.

From 2001 to 2010, he was the Artistic Administrator of the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago. Since 2011, he has been the Artistic Director of the Teatro Carlo Felice Foundation. Since 2013, he has been the Guest Conductor at the Astana Opera House, where he conducted the premiere of the ballet Romeo and Juliet and the operas La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. Giuseppe Acquaviva has collaborated with many theatres all over the world. In 2010 he debuted at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste and 2011 at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna. In 2015 he conducted La Bohème at the Yekaterinburg State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova. In 2017 he conducted La Bohème and Rigoletto at the Kazakh State Abay Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Almaty, and in 2018 he conducted Tosca at Daning Theatre in Shanghai.
Giuseppe Acquaviva has been a jury member at numerous competitions, including Sanremo Lirica, Concorso AsLiCo, the Verdi Competition, and the Bellini Competition in Beijing, International Knushevitsky Cello Competition in Saratov and Plácido Domingo’s Operalia among others.

István Kohán

The Tokyo based Hungarian clarinettist István Kohán is one of the most exciting wind instrumental soloists of today. Kohán launched his career when he won 1st prize and audience prize at the 11th Tokyo Music Competition, Japan, in 2013. In 2015 he won 1st prize and audience prize at Japan’s most prestigious music contest, the 84th Japanese Music Competition. The same year he won 1st prize and audience prize at Japan Woodwind Competition, 1st prize, and Grand Prix at Akiyoshidai Music competition. He won 24 prizes at 15 competitions. In 2013 he won the Junior Prima Award (Music Division). The “The Clarinet” magazine wrote about him as “The new hero of the clarinet world.”

In 2017 got the Aoyama Music Award. In addition to his many concerts and activities, he is teaching at Tokyo College of Music, and he is composing as well. On his concerts, he plays his own compositions and arrangements and also improvises. Kohán is keenly expanding the existing clarinet repertoire by writing new pieces what usually inspired by his musical roots. His father is an outstanding klezmer musician, so this genre is like a native language for him. The characteristic and world-famous Hungarian folk music is also a strongly inspirational source for him. Kohán is a Yamaha Artist. This collaboration with the Japanese company allowed him to reach higher levels in his musicality with the best quality of instruments.

He has been invited to music festivals as Tokyo Spring Festival, KaposFest, La Folle Journée au Japon, Budapest Spring Festival. He performed with orchestras in Japan as the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kioi Sinfonietta with conductors as Antonio Mendez, Kazuki Sawa, Toshiaki Umeda, Masahiko Enkoji, Shigeo Genda.

Victoria Kogan

Russian born Victoria Korchinskaya-Kogan is one of the most significant pianists of our time. Praised as “an admirably gifted performer” by Yuri Temirkanov, “the pianist of great talent, having extraordinary skills and boundless musicality” by Mikhail Pletnev and a “true artist ”by Yefim Bronfman, Victoria is the winner of The Stravinsky Piano Competition, Andorra Piano Competition, E-Piano Competition in Minneapolis and I International Piano Competition In Korea among others.

As a soloist, Victoria performed with major orchestras in concert halls such as the Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Concertgebouw, Koln Philharmonic, Nurnberg Meistersinger Hall, Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Salle Pleyel in Paris and concertized throughout Russia, USA, Canada, Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Netherlands, Turkey, Egypt, France, Azerbaijan and Korea under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev, Mark Gorenstein, Pavel Kogan, Arnold Katz, Nikolai Alekseev, Maxim Schostakovicn, Vladimir Ziva, Alexander Vedernikov, Mark Russell Smith, Charles Ansbacher, and Laurent Petitgirard.

Two recent recordings featuring Beethoven Piano Concertos by Victoria Korchinskaya-Kogan Released under Art Classic Company label received critical acclaim for its distinguished imagination and stylistic precision. Born in Moscow, 1978, as the granddaughter of the famous violinists Leonid Kogan and Elizaveta Gilels, Victoria started to play the piano at the age of 5. One year later, she debuted at the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

Victoria received her M.M. and D.M.A. from the Moscow Conservatory, where she studied with Lev Vlassenko, Sergei Dorensky, and Pavel Nersessian. Her masterclasses include studying with Andreas Stayer, Dmitry Bashkirov, Claude Frank, William Nabore, and Jose Feghali. Faculty in Moscow Conservatory since 2007 and Seokyeong University in Seoul since 2014 Victoria is also a frequent guest of famous international music festivals, such as The Corinthian Summer Music Festival in Austria, Summit Music Festival and Mannes Keyboard Festival in the USA, the Musiktage Koblenz in Germany, Nuit Classiques de Ramatuelle and Nuits du Piano d’Erbalunga in France.

Her upcoming performances include concerts in Moscow, St.Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Odessa, Baku, South Korea, Israel, USA, Japan, and Argentina.

Michael Gruber

CEO and Artists Manager at Opera4u.com GmbH, Vienna

He was born in Vienna and completed his studies in Economy and Direct Marketing in his hometown and Frankfurt, Germany. He started his professional career as a marketing assistant at the International Book & Publishing House (editor of the publication „Who is Who“), then worked in the subscribers‘ marketing of Austria’s biggest magazine publisher. From 2001 till 2008 he was a product manager at Austria’s leading direct marketing agency, and from 2008 he has been working as Artists and production manager at Opera4u, Austria’s biggest opera agency. Since 2019 he has been the managing director of the agency as well.

Besides he has worked for several theatres and opera festivals as Artistic Consultant, e.g., he was the external casting director of Germany’s Theater Freiburg for five seasons, worked as Artistic Consultant for the Latvian National Opera Riga, the Bartók Plusz Opera Festival in Miskolc, Hungary and the Lviv MozArt Festival in Lviv, Ukraine.

He has been invited to be part of the jury of many singing competitions, among them the József Simándy Vocal Competition in Szeged, Hungary, or the Concorso Salvatore Licitra in Milan, Italy.

Vera Tsu Weiling

Vera Tsu Weiling, is a renowned violinist and educator, Professor and Master’s program advisor of Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Central Conservatory of Music, Vice-President of China Violin Society and China Federation of Chamber Musician, the Co-Chairman of the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition as well as Chairman of Violin Jury Harbin International Music Competition. She has been invited to sit on the jury of many prestigious competitions worldwide including the Queen Elizabeth Competition of Belgium (in 2009 and 2012), Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition Poznan (in 2011 and 2016), Menuhin Competition, Pablo Sarasate International Violin Competition, Montreal International Musical Competition and the remarkable XV Tchaikovsky Violin Competition Moscow in 2015. By far, Prof. Tsu is the only Chinese violinist who has frequently served at most of the highest level international competitions. As an educator, Vera Tsu Weiling organized and attended master classes and seminars in the United States, Japan, Italy, Argentina, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and throughout China. Her students won many prizes and gained a great reputation in the international competitions. As a soloist, she has also been performing on stages with both domestic and international orchestras including WDR Sinfonieorchester Koeln, the New York City Symphony, the New York Symphonic Ensemble, the Charleston Symphony, London Chamber Players, the Orchestra de Cannes, the Budapest Radio Orchestra, the Slovakia Radio Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Novosibirsk Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, the Hanover Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, China National Symphony Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, China Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Vera Tsu Weiling’s “20th anniversary of teaching” concert will be held at the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall on March 8th, 2020.

Born in Shanghai, Tsu got in the Central Conservatory in Beijing in 1977 and became the first-generation of college students after the Cultural Revolution. During the distinguished international violin master Isaac Stern’s first visit to China in 1979, as a sophomore, Tsu performed for Mr. Stern and was featured in the overwhelming Oscar-winning documentary From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. Vera Tsu Weiling went to the USA in 1980, where she continued her study with Dorothy DeLay and Rafael Bronstein, who was then the only living disciple of violin ancestor Leopold Auer. She graduated from the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music with Master Degrees. Since Tsu was back in China in 2000, she has been active in the front line of performance and education.