BREAKING | 2nd Round Candidates Announced at Munich's ARD International Viola Competition

The 19 candidates progressing to the 2nd round of the 2018 ARD International Viola Competition have been announced

The 19 candidates progressing to the 2nd round of the 2018 ARD International Viola Competition have today been announced – in Munich, Germany.

The 2018 2nd round viola candidates are:

• VC Young Artist Ziyu Shen (China)
• En-Chi Cheng (Taiwan)
• Ricardo Gaspar (Portugal)
• Yitong Guo (China)
• Saki Ishida (Japan)
• Takehiro Konoe (Japan)
• Georgy Kovalev (Russia)
• Hwayoon Lee (South Korea)
• Sangyoon Lee (South Korea)
• Wenhong Luo (China)
• Diyang Mei (China)
• Seohyun Moon (South Korea)
• Aoi Murase (Japan)
• Wakana Ono (Japan)
• Agnieszka Podłucka (Poland)
• Tobias Reifland (Germany)
• Yucheng Shi (China)
• Kei Tojo (Japan)
• Manuel Vioque-Judde (France)

Open to young international musicians, aged 17 to 35 who are ready to launch an international career, the 1st prize winner will receive €10,000 – and a number of important debut concert and recording invitations.

The 2018 viola competition jury comprises: Vladimir Bukač, Nicholas Cords, Nobuko Imai, Garth Knox, Thomas Riebl, Maxim Rysanov and Geraldine Walther.

Previous ARD competition category prize winners include: Christian Tetzlaff, Jessye Norman, Natalia Gutman, Christoph Eschenbach, Mitsuko Uchida, Yuri Bashmet, Igor Ozim, Dora Schwarzberg – and VC Artists Bomsori Kim and Sarah Christian.

As the ARD competition’s official 2018 international media partner, The Violin Channel will be providing exclusive rolling-coverage – live from the venue.

Live streaming available exclusively on The Violin Channel.