International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates The International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition, named after Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, is a competition for violinists up to age 30. It is held every five years in Helsinki. The first competition took place in year 1965, eight years after the death of the composer to mark the centenary of the composer's birth. The competition is arranged by the Sibelius Society of Finland and the Sibelius Academy.

The competition has always had high-level competitors, and winners such as Oleg Kagan, Viktoria Mullova, and Leonidas Kavakos have become internationally performing soloists. The popularity amongst the players might be explained by the location of the competition: Finland connecting western Europe and USSR was probably considered safe enough by the Soviet authority to allow players to attend the competition.

Structure

The competition has three rounds: the first round, the second round, and the final round. After each round, a number of competitors are chosen to proceed to the next round, and after the final round the finalists are ranked. In the final ranking, the performance in each round is considered as a whole. To be accepted in the competition, candidates need to send a performance sample for a competition committee for pre-selection.

The first round program consists typically works of Bach, a sonata by Mozart, and Paganini's capriccios. It is said that Bach measures readiness, Mozart measures understanding of style, and Paganini measures technical ability. The second round, often referred as the semi-finals, consists typically of a sonata for violin and piano, few pieces by Sibelius, a modern Finnish piece, and a virtuoso piece. In the final round, the finalists perform two concertos accompanied by a full symphony orchestra. One of the concertos is mandated as the Violin Concerto in D minor by Sibelius.

In 2005, 175 applications were received, 58 competitors were accepted of which 50 took part in the competition, 20 proceeded to the second round, and 8 were chosen to the final round.

Laureates

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1965	Template:Flagicon Oleg Kagan	Template:Flagicon Joshua Epstein	Template:Flagicon Valery Gradov
1970	Template:Flagicon Liana Isakadze Template:Flagicon Pavel Kogan	Not awarded	Template:Flagicon Otto Armin
1975	Template:Flagicon Yuval Yaron	Template:Flagicon Ilya Grubert	Template:Flagicon Eugene Sârbu
1980	Template:Flagicon Viktoria Mullova	Template:Flagicon Sergei Stadler	Template:Flagicon Andrés Cárdenes
1985	Template:Flagicon Ilya Kaler Template:Flagicon Leonidas Kavakos	Not awarded	Template:Flagicon Vilmos Szabadi
1990	Not awarded	Template:Flagicon Cristina Anghelescu	Template:Flagicon Sigrún Edvaldsdóttir Template:FlagiconAkiko Tanaka
1995	Template:Flagicon Pekka Kuusisto	Template:Flagicon Elisabeth Batiashvili	Template:Flagicon Madoka Sato Template:Flagicon Nikolaj Znaider
2000	Template:Flagicon Sergei Khachatryan	Template:Flagicon Natsumi Tamai	Template:Flagicon Zhi-Jiong Wang Template:Flagicon Sayako Kusaka
2005	Template:Flagicon Alina Pogostkina	Template:Flagicon Jiafeng Chen	Template:Flagicon Zia-Hyunsu Shin Template:Flagicon Wei Wen
2010	Template:Flagicon Nikita Borisoglebsky	Template:Flagicon Petteri Iivonen	Template:Flagicon Esther Yoo
2015	Template:Flagicon Christel Lee	Template:Flagicon Emmanuel Tjeknavorian	Template:Flagicon Friederike Starkloff
2022	Template:Flagicon In Mo Yang	Template:Flagicon Nathan Meltzer	Template:Flagicon Dmytro Udovychenko
2025	Template:Flagicon Sueye Park	Template:Flagicon Minami Yoshida	Template:Flagicon Claire Wells

See also

• List of classical music competitions
• World Federation of International Music Competitions

External links

• The competition pages of Finnish Broadcasting Company
• The Sibelius Society of Finland Template:Webarchive