2018 Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition Announces 36 Quarterfinalists

April 8, 2018, 9:45 PM · The 2018 Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition (SISIVC) has announced 36 quarterfinalists who are invited to participate in its second-ever live competition rounds in Shanghai late this summer. The candidates, from 10 countries, were chosen from 174 applicants from 33 countries.

Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition quarterfinalists 2018

The candidates are:

Yurina Arai of Japan
Marie Bégin of Canada
Jiayi Chen of China
Yige Chen of China
Ellinor D’Melon of Jamaica
Hiu Sing Fan of Hong Kong, China
Mone Hattori of Japan
Shucong He of China
Valerie Kim of United States
Alina Kobialka of United States
Miyeon Lee of South Korea
William Lee of Taiwan, China
Quanshuai Li of China
Po-Yu Lin of Taiwan, China
Ruifeng Lin of China
Zhen Liu of China
Petr Lundstrem of Russia
Ashley Park of United States
Diana Pasko of Russia
Eva Rabchevska of Ukraine
Arsenis Selalmazidis of Greece
Dmitry Smirnov of Russia
Ji Won Song of South Korea
Olga Šroubková of Czech
Sophia Su of United States
Anna Tanaka of Japan
Yun Tang of China
Chang Yuan Ting of Canada
Diana Tishchenko of Ukraine
Chieri Tomii of Japan
Jacqueline Tso of United States
Jiazhi Wang of China
Runyin Zhang of China
Alex Zhou of United States
Jin Zhou of China
Nancy Zhou of United States

The competition, with a grand prize of $100,000, will begin August 10, with three rounds over the course of three weeks. Second prize will be $50,000 and third prize $25,000, with a prize of $10,000 awarded for the best performance of the Chinese work, Qigang Chen’s "La joie de la souffrance." A $10,000 Isaac Stern Prize also will be awarded to an individual – in any field and from any part of the world – who is deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to the understanding of humanity through music. Winners will be announced Sept. 1.

The jury for the SISIVC 2018 will be co-chaired by conductor David Stern, son of Isaac Stern, and Vera Tsu Weiling, who is professor of violin at both Shanghai and Beijing Conservatories. Other members of the jury will include Lina Yu; Siqing Lu; Maxim Vengerov; Augustin Dumay; Zakhar Bron; Dora Schwarzberg; Daniel Heifetz; Weigang Li; Philip Setzer; Glenn Dicterow and Sreten Krstic; Martin Campbell-White and Emmanuel Hondré. Contestants will be required to clarify if there is any immediate family or pupil relationship with any jury member upon arrival.

The Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition was founded in 2015, with the first competition taking place in 2016. It was named after violinist Isaac Stern, whose 1979 visit to China was a great source of hope and inspiration for violinists and musicians in China, following that country's "Cultural Revolution," during which western music had been banned.

Winners in the 2016 Shanghai competition included first-prize winner Mayu Kishima of Japan, with Sergei Dogadin of Russia coming in second and Serena Huang of the United States third.

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April 9, 2018 at 05:35 AM · “Contestants will be required to clarify if there is any immediate family or pupil relationship “

This is good to see as there are often questions asked about such relationships; especially in regard to Zakhar Bron. I know nothing against Mr. Bron - who famously taught Vengerov and Repin - but gossip can make things more difficult for the prize winners.

In the theatre we say ‘break a leg’ to the actors, so here maybe ‘break a string’ ?

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