Winners of Concertino Praga 2017 Announced
On Sunday, 22nd January, an international jury of experts chose the winners of the 51st annual Concertino Praga radio competition.
For this year the competition was open to flautists, oboists, clarinettists, trumpeters and bassoonists. Its overall winner and Helena Karásková Prize laureate is Uliana Zhivitckaia from Russia. The winners will be proving their skills during the laureates’ concert with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra at Prague´s Municipal House on 9th June. The concert will be followed by the traditional South Bohemian Concertino Praga Festival.
The 51st annual international competition for young musicians was entered by participants from Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine. The Czech Republic was represented by five recordings.
The overall winner, who is for this year flautist Uliana Zhivitckaia, will have a profile CD released by Czech Radio. The young talented Russian musician’s performance fascinated the jury to such a degree that she was also awarded for the best performance of a compulsory composition.
„The winners announcement was preceded by a careful and systematic evaluation of the recordings by the International jury members. The jury heard all the registered recordings without knowing the names of the competitors and they subsequently chose the winners in compliance with the new evaluation system. The technical and expression quality of Uliana Zhivitckaia´s recording was so convincing that not only was she awarded the first prize in the category Flute, she was also awarded the prize for the best interpretation of the compulsory composition and she became the overall winner of this year´s edition,“ says the chief producer of Czech Radio´s Music production Lukáš Hurník.
First prize in the FLUTE category was taken by Uliana Zhivitckaia (Russia), in the OBOE category the first prize was not awarded and the second prize was taken by Timofei Iakhnov (Russia), in the CLARINET category by Andrey Ryazantsev (Russia) and in the BASSOON category by Adam Plšek (Czech Republic).
The laureates’ concert takes place at Prague´s Municipal House on 9th June. The concert will be followed by the South Bohemian Concertino Praga Festival. The laureate’s will be performing at the concert halls or chateaus of historical South Bohemian towns between 12th and 16th June. Therefore, the Concertino Praga competition achieves its goal, which is to promote classical music and introducing the best Czech and foreign generation of young musicians to the public.
This year, the young musicians’ performances were assessed by the following jury members:
Jan Ostrý (flute), Jozef Luptáčik (clarinet), Renata Penezić (flute), Robert Wolf (flute), Jana Brožková (oboe), Jan Hudeček (bassoon) a Marek Zvolánek (trumpet).
Complete results can be seen in the attached List of Results of the International Competition for Young Musicians Concertino Praga 2017.
