2023 Montreal International Music Competition-Violin Announces 12 Semi-Finalists

April 28, 2023, 1:51 AM · The Concours musical international de Montréal (Montreal International Music Competition) has announced 12 semi-finalists for its 2023 Violin Edition, chosen from 24 violinists between the ages of 17 and 27, from 11 different countries who performed this week in the competitions first round.

Semi-finalists in the 2023 Montreal International Music Competition-Violin. Photo by Tam Lan Truong.

The semi-finalists are:

SongHa Choi, 23, of South Korea
Yeyeong Jenny Jin, 19, of South Korea
Lorenz Karls, 22, of Sweden
SooBeen Lee, 22, of South Korea
Yesong Sophie Lee, 19, of the United States
Bohdan Luts, 18, of Ukraine
Nathan Meltzer, 22, of the United States
Michael Shaham, 19, of Israel
Dmytro Udovychenko, 23, of Ukraine
Pauline Van der Rest, 18, of Belgium
Ruslan Talas, 24, of Kazakhstan
Zhixin Zhang, 22, of China

The semi-final round will take place April 29 and 30 at Bourgie Hall at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, with violinists performing a 55 to 60-minute program with piano accompaniment, including a minimum of three pieces, including a complete sonata by Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy,Enescu, Fauré, Franck, Janácek, Prokofiev, Ravel, Schnittke, Schumann, Schubert, or Strauss; the required Canadian work "L'inconnu.e bouleversant.e" by Luna Pearl Woolf; and a work of the violinist's choice.

At the conclusion of the semi-final round, the jury will select six violinists to take part in the Finals on May 3 and 4, at 7:30 p.m. at Maison symphonique with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, with guest conductor Rafael Payare. All prizes will be announced and awarded during the closing ceremony, which will take place at the conclusion of the competition on May 4.

You can find the livestream of the semi-finals and final rounds and also watch previous performances from this year's competition on-demand on this page (click here).

The jury for the 2023 Violin edition includes Richard Rodzinski (chairman), Koichiro Harada (Japan), Yura Lee (Korea/USA), Malcom Lowe (Canada), Mihaela Martin(Romania), Lucie Robert (Canada), Dmitry Sitkovetsky (United Kingdom/USA) and Krishna Thiagarajan (Germany/USA).

You might also like:

* * *

Enjoying Violinist.com? Click here to sign up for our free, bi-weekly email newsletter. And if you've already signed up, please invite your friends! Thank you.