Second round jury
Meet the international jury that will evaluate the final round of this year’s competition. The jury is the same for both competition categories – all jury members assess every finalist, and their scores are then averaged.
Jonathan Freeman-Attwood is the Principal of the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has been active in the field of education for more than thirty-five years and has also established himself as a music producer, trumpet player, writer and radio presenter. He has recorded more than 250 commercial recordings, which have received major awards, including several Diapason d’Or, Gramophone and BBC Music Awards. He is a recognised authority on the interpretation of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. In 2001, he was awarded the title of Professor of the University of London, and in 2008 he was appointed Principal of the Academy. He works as a teacher, scholar, critic and contributor to specialist journals and publications, and regularly appears on BBC radio. He serves on the boards of many music and educational institutions, is a patron of London Youth Choirs, and holds fellowships of the Royal College of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music and King’s College London. In 2017, he was appointed Honorary Visiting Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts. In 2018, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire.
The renowned oboist Jana Brožková graduated from the Prague Conservatory and the Music Faculty at the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague. In 1983, she drew attention to herself by winning the Concertino Praga international competition and in 1989 she was the absolute winner and received a special prize at the Europäischer Musikpreis Zürich. She worked for a number of years as the solo oboist at the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra and she has played first oboe at the Czech Philharmonic since 2002. She also regularly performs as a soloist or as a member of chamber ensembles. She won the prestigious 1st prize in the ARD Munich competition in 1997 with the Afflatus Quintet. She has also been a teacher at the Music Faculty of the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague since 1999.
Katarina Gurska was born in the former Czechoslovakia, where she studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, later continuing her studies in Paris. She lives in Madrid, where she has been developing her career for more than forty years. As a pianist, teacher and manager, she promotes an innovative educational model based on high-level training and artistic discipline. In 1985, she founded an educational institution which, under her leadership and thanks to its highly renowned teaching staff, has achieved outstanding results at all levels, from elementary and professional studies to higher artistic music education. She also became a pioneer of the first official master’s degree programmes in Spain in the field of advanced musical specialisation and professional development. She is President of the Foundation and CEO of the KATARINAGURSKA Group, which brings together the entities involved in this project. In addition to her teaching and executive roles, she leads a number of initiatives through the Foundation, including scholarship programmes, awards for artistic excellence and social integration projects.
Jiří Hlaváč is known as a clarinettist, saxophonist, teacher, composer, populariser, dramaturg, presenter and author. In 1974, he founded the legendary Barock Jazz Quintet, which he led for 34 years. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has given around 5,000 public performances and made recordings for radio, television and record companies in more than sixty countries across five continents. He has received numerous prestigious awards both in the Czech Republic and abroad for his artistic work. For fifty years, he was active as a teacher at the Conservatory in Plzeň and at the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he trained fourteen laureates of prestigious international competitions. He has served as Dean of the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Chairman of the Association of Music Artists and Scholars, Chairman of the Permanent Competition Committee of Concertino Praga, Chairman of the Permanent Competition Committee of the Prague Spring International Music Competition, Director of the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation and President of Regio Art. As a juror, he has taken part in the work of committees at more than one hundred international and national performance competitions in the Czech Republic, Europe and on other continents.
Since his London debut at the age of fifteen, Václav Hudeček has performed all over the world on the most prestigious stages, including Carnegie Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, Suntory Hall, Osaka Festival Hall and the Sydney Opera House, with leading international orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. His 1992 recording of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons remains the most successful Czech recording to date, earning him both a gold and a platinum disc. Václav Hudeček does not devote himself solely to the works of the old masters, but has also expanded his repertoire to include 20th-century music, including works by Janáček and Prokofiev, as well as compositions by contemporary Czech composers such as Kymlička, Fišer and Mácha. He is systematically committed to supporting the emerging generation of Czech performers, both through his annual summer violin courses in Luhačovice and by presenting the finest young players as guests at his concerts. He has received many prestigious awards, including a state decoration for his services to the country in the field of culture and the arts, as well as the Gold Medal and honorary citizenship of the City of Prague.
Pianist Ivo Kahánek is one of the most successful Czech performers of his generation. After graduating from the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, he continued his studies at the renowned Guildhall School in London. At the age of twenty-five, he became the overall winner of the Prague Spring International Music Competition. In addition to solo recitals, he performs in the Czech Republic and abroad with renowned orchestras and conductors. In November 2014, he became only the second Czech pianist in history to appear with the Berliner Philharmoniker, performing under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. He has made a number of acclaimed recordings featuring works by Fryderyk Chopin, Leoš Janáček and others. His complete recording of Antonín Dvořák’s piano works, released by Supraphon in 2021, attracted considerable attention. His album of piano concertos by Dvořák and Martinů, recorded with conductor Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony, was named Recording of the Year by the prestigious British music magazine BBC Music Magazine. Since 2025, Ivo Kahánek has served as Director of the Prague Conservatory.
Cyprien Katsaris is a French-Cypriot pianist and composer whose international artistic career includes performances with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, as well as collaborations with conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Neville Marriner, Simon Rattle, Mstislav Rostropovich and Christoph von Dohnányi. In addition to the standard repertoire, including complete performances of Mozart’s piano concertos in Salzburg and Vienna, he has also revived long-forgotten works, such as Liszt’s Piano Concerto in the Hungarian Style. He has received numerous prestigious international awards for his many recordings and holds a number of distinctions, including UNESCO Artist for Peace (1997), Commander of the Order of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (2009) and Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France (2000). He is also the recipient of the Médaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris (2001) and the Nemitsas Prize in Cyprus (2011). In 2023, he received the prestigious honorary Franz Liszt Award from the Franz Liszt Foundation and the Weimar Classic Foundation.
Lukáš Moťka is Principal Trombonist of the Czech Philharmonic. He studied at the Pavel Josef Vejvanovský Conservatory, the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He furthered his education at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna. He is the winner of the 1st Prize and overall winner title at the Czech Conservatories Competition, as well as the 1st Prize and overall winner title at the Brno International Brass Competition. He reached the semifinals of the Hungarofest International Competition in Hungary, Lieksa Brass Week in Finland and the ARD International Music Competition in Germany. At the International Instrumental Competition in Markneukirchen, Germany, he won 3rd Prize, and at the Prague Spring International Music Competition he received 2nd Prize and the title of laureate. As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras including the Brno Philharmonic, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Hradec Králové Philharmonic, the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra and the Vogtland Philharmonie Greiz/Reichenbach. He is also a sought-after chamber musician. He is a member of the CzechBrass ensemble and of the Czech Philharmonic Low Brass Ensemble.
Václav Petr is considered one of the most distinguished Czech cellists of his generation. He is the winner of the 70th Prague Spring International Music Competition, as well as many other prestigious competitions. As a soloist, he has performed with major orchestras including the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, PKF – Prague Philharmonia, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Pilsen Philharmonic, the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, the Baden-Baden Philharmonie and the Slovak Chamber Orchestra of Bohdan Warchal, among others. He is also active as a chamber musician. Since 2009, he has been a member of the Josef Suk Piano Quartet, with which he won First Prize at the chamber music competition in Val Tidone, Italy, as well as at the Salieri–Zinetti Chamber Music Competition and at Premio Trio di Trieste, one of the most prestigious competitions for chamber ensembles with piano. Since 2020, he has been a member of The Trio, together with violin virtuoso Jiří Vodička and acclaimed pianist Martin Kasík. In 2013, at the age of twenty-four, he became one of the youngest concertmasters in the history of the Czech Philharmonic.
Dmitry Sitkovetsky is a renowned violinist, conductor, composer, arranger, populariser and interpreter of music. In 1990, he established the New European Strings chamber orchestra which brought together the most significant string players from top-flight European ensembles, from the Russian and Western music environments. The name Dmitry Sitkovetsky has become a synonym for the art of transcription. His cult arrangements of Bach’s Goldberg Variations have taken on a life of their own: they are regularly performed on concert stages and many contemporary performers have made recordings of them. Sitkovetsky is also highly sought after as a jury member, a musical expert and a teacher. He was recently a jury member at the International Violin Competition in Indianapolis, the Concours Musical International de Montréal, the International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Enescu Violin Competition. He has many concerts throughout Europe and North America as a violinist and/or guest conductor in the 2022–2023 season, for example in Jerusalem, Berlin, Mexico City, Bucharest, Havana, Istanbul, Baku and Sophia.
The flautist Henrik Wiese was born in Vienna in 1971. He received his musical education under Ingrid Koch-Dörnbrak and Paul Meisen. He acquired his initial experience as an orchestral player as the second flute in the Munich Philharmonic under its former principal conductor Sergiu Celibidache. In 1995–2006, he was the principal flautist at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and he became the principal flautist at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2006. He has synesthetic abilities, i.e. he hears colours. This rare gift is an important source of musical inspiration for him. He has performed as a soloist with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Hannover Radio Orchestra, the Polish Chamber Philharmonic, the Prague Chamber Orchestra and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. His extensive music activities are especially borne out by his recordings of chamber music. In addition to a modern Boehm flute, he also plays a baroque instrument, with which he performs in L'accadémia Giocosa. He has been a professor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg for many years.