Winners of 2018 International Music Competition Harbin Announced

The winners of the inaugural International Music Competition Harbin (IMCH) were announced last week. In an all-women sweep, Nancy Zhou (25, United States) and Linzi Pan (24, China) were awarded first place in the violin and piano categories, respectively, along with cash prizes of $50,000. No first-place winner was chosen for the voice category. Svetlana Moskalenko (31, Russia) took second place and a cash prize of $30,000.

Second, third, and fourth places in the violin category went to Kyumin Park of South Korea, Leonid Zheleznyi of Russia, and Fang Lei Liu of China. Second, third, and fourth places in the piano category were given to Alexander Panfilov of Russia, Rafael Skorka of Israel, and Florian Mitrea of the United Kingdom. Third and fourth places in the voice category were awarded to Alexander Roslavets of Belarus and Da Shuai Chen of China. The cash prizes were $30,000, $20,000, and $10,000 for second, third, and fourth places.

The winners' gala and awards ceremony was held at the Harbin Grand Theatre on January 26 th where the winners Ms. Zhou, Ms. Pan, and Ms. Moskalenko performed, in addition to Mr. Roslavets. The soloists performed with the Shenzhen Symphony under the baton of Chinese conductor Yongyan Hu. The event was broadcast by Medici TV, who also provided the live stream for the semi-finals and finals.

Co-hosted by the Harbin Municipal Government and Harbin Conservatory of Music, the 2018 International Music Competition Harbin was held from January 12-26. The 23 violin candidates, 24 piano candidates, and 37 voice candidates invited to Harbin were hand-selected from 352 submissions from more than 31 countries. After the preliminary rounds in the new Harbin Conservatory of Music, the semi-finals took place at the Harbin Concert Hall where participants performed with the Harbin Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra of Harbin Conservatory. Finalists then performed with the Harbin Symphony Orchestra and the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra.

IMCH juries consisted of distinguished leaders in the arts from Europe, the Americas, China, and Russia including Augustin Dumay, Ilya Kaler and Victor Tretiakov (violin), Arnaldo Cohen, Dang Thai Son and Peter Donohoe (piano), Kiri Te Kanawa, Robert Holl and Olga Borodina (voice), and many others.

SOURCE International Music Competition Harbin