Paganini Competition

The Paganini Competition (or Premio Paganini or Paganini Concore) is an international violin competition named after the famed virtuoso and founder of contemporary violin technique Niccolò Paganini. Created in 1954 it has been carried out ever since in the months of September and October. The "Paganini Competition" is one of the most important violin competitions. It is held every two years at "Carlo Felice" theatre in Genoa, Italy. There are three levels of competition: preliminaries, semi-finals, and finals and repertoire that is played includes solo violin, violin and piano accompaniment, and violin and orchestra.

Participants are of all nationalities and are under 31 years of age.

Preliminaries: Preliminary repertoire includes two selections for solo violin or violin and piano accompaniment and two Caprices from Paganini's 24 Caprices, Op.1 M.S. 25 for solo violin.

Semi-Finals: Three or four selections for solo violin or violin and piano, one virtuoso piece by Paganini, and one contemporary piece.

Finals: Two pieces with orchestra that may be a whole concerto or part of a concerto. One of the two pieces is always by Paganini.

There are eight judges. They are all musicians, usually violinists, but sometimes composers, conductors, or other musicians.

Six musicians place, though occasionally seven have been awarded the prize. Since 1989 special placement has been awarded. It is no longer possible to be joint winners. The player selected by the judges, however, will be given the honor of playing one of Paganini's violins and is often offered recording contracts.

Giovanni Angeleri (Italy) 7 prizes Eijin Nimura (Japan) 5 prizes Yuki Manuela Janke (Germania/Japan) 4 prizes Jean-Pierre Wallez (France) 4 prizes In Mo Yang (South Korea) 4 prizes Ilya Gringolts (Russia) 3 prizes Mengla Huang (China) 3 prizes Stephanie Jeong (USA) 3 prizes Dami Kim (South Korea) 3 prizes Feng Ning (China) 3 prizes Mariusz Patyra (Poland) 3 prizes Gabriele Pieranunzi (Italy) 3 prizes Sayaka Shoji (Japan) 3 prizes Reiko Watanabe (Japan) 3 prizes

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Wikipedia