The three finalists of the Violin Section of the George Enescu Competition 2022 were announced this evening, following the Semifinals that took place on September 10 and 11. In the Final on September 13, two music masterpieces, two of the most loved and appreciated violin concertos of all time, composed by Brahms and Tchaikovsky, will be played on the stage of the Romanian Athenaeum, performed by the three young musicians. The results were announced by the expert jury on Sunday evening.
Two of the violinists qualified in the Final, Ștefan Aprodu and Maria Marica, chose as their repertoire the Violin Concerto în D major Op. 77 by Johannes Brahms, one of the most famous violin concertos in the history of music. The third competitor, Grégoire Torossian will perform the Violin Concerto in D major Op. 35 by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the most famous violin concertos but also one of the most technically difficult.
12 competitors took part in the Semifinals of the “George Enescu” International Competition 2022, Violin Section, which took place on September 10 and 11, at the Romanian University in Bucharest. The specialized jury decided on Sunday, September 11, the qualified competitors for the Grand Final of the Competition for the Violin Section. They are, in alphabetical order:
Ștefan Aprodu (Romania), Maria Marica (Romania) și Grégoire Torossian (France)
The Jury of the Violin Section at the 2022 edition of the Enescu Competition consists of: Dmitry Sitkovetsky (President of the Jury), Remus Azoiței, David Grimal, Frank Huang, Simon James, Paul Kantor, Silvia Marcovici, Igor Petrushevski and Krzysztof Wegrzyn.
The final of the Competition, the Violin Section, consisting of three orchestra concerts, with the extraordinary participation of the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Wilson Hermanto, will take place on September 13, from 18:00, in the Great Hall of the Romanian Athenaeum. Tickets for the Violin Finale, but also for the other concerts within the Competition, are available online on EVENTIM.
Ștefan Aprodu chose to perform in the Grand Finale for the Violin Section the Violin Concerto în D major Op. 77 by Johannes Brahms. He studies at the Dinu Lipatti Arts High School in Bucharest, with Prof. Magdalena Ursu and has already performed with several symphony orchestras and conductors (Ad Honorem Ivry Gitlis concert with David Stern conducting; Gabriel Bebeșelea – Junior Orchestra; Sabin Păuța – Royal Chamber, Yasuo Minami – Takasaki Youth Orchestra, Japan). He was recently awarded first prize at the Vasco Abadjiev International Violin Competition in Sofia, Bulgaria, and his portfolio also includes a number of international awards. He is also a passionate young composer, and since 2020 he has been participating in Dåsele Vådår Sevaidå’s online composition course at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. One of his compositions – Concert no. 3 for Violin and orchestra in E minor – will be performed this autumn, with Ștefan Aprodu as soloist.
Maria Marica (Romania) will also perform the Violin Concerto în D major Op. 77 by Johannes Brahms in the Grand Finale for the Violin Section. She has been studying the violin since the age of seven and is currently tutored by David Grimal at the University of Music in Saarbrücken. She played recitals and concerts both in Romania and in France, Italy, Germany and the United States and is a laureate of several competitions in Romania. She has performed in chamber ensembles with renowned musicians such as Marc Coppey, Philippe Cassard, David Grimal, Frans Helmerson, Boris Brovtsyn, Sergey Malov, Victor Julien-Laferrière and Solenne Païdassi. She is a member of the Les Dissonances Ensemble and was also a member of the Romanian Youth Orchestra, with whom she had the chance to perform in concert halls such as Musikverein Vienna, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Philharmonic in Paris, Konzerthaus Berlin. Maria was supported in the past by the Constance et Andrei Rhoe Foundation and MOL Romania and is currently financially supported by a German state scholarship.
Grégoire Torossian will perform in the Finale the Violin Concerto în Dmajor Op. 35 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Born in 2000 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Grégoire Torossian began studying the violin at the age of 4. He worked in the early years with Maja Lazko in Paris, then at the Tours Conservatoire with Pierre Ivanovitch, where he obtained the Diploma of Musical Studies with unanimous approval from the jury. In 2018, he was admitted to the Conservatoire National Supérieure in Paris, in the class of Professor Ami Flammer, and graduated two years later with a bachelor’s degree. Currently, Grégoire is pursuing his master’s studies at the Paris Conservatoire, in the class of professors Svetlin Roussev and Pierre Colombet. In 2018, Grégoire Torossian won first prize at the Leonid Kogan Competition in Brussels. In chamber music, he performed with the Möbius Quartet at the French Spring Festival in Ukraine (July 2021) and at the Ozawa Academy in Switzerland (July 2022). He attended master classes with Sergey Khachatryan, Julia Fischer, Kirill Troussov, Sarah Nemțanu, Lewis Kaplan and Patrice Fontanarosa.
The 18th edition of the George Enescu International Competition takes place in Bucharest between September 4 and 18. This year, the Enescu Competition marks the return to the concert hall, after two years when cultural events had to reinvent themselves and move partially or totally online. The message that the Enescu Competition sends this year is that of regaining hope: Music of hope | Music of Hope. Over 100 young musicians from all over the world signed up for the online stage of the Contest. Among them, 34 talented artists will have the opportunity to take the stage of the Romanian Athenaeum, between September 4 and 18, in the Semi-Final and Final stages in the three interpretive sections: violin, cello and piano.
For more details, please visit: https://www.festivalenescu.ro.
The official photographers of the Enescu 2022 Competition will make available to the media free of charge a series of images live from the events of the Competition, taken by the official photographer of the Competition. They can be accessed at this link. Also, at the request of the press, the organizers can offer free images from the artists’ archives or from the Contest’s archive
Press contact:
Maria Ursică: [email protected], +40 728 832 180
