Artistic Director Retires from Menuhin Competition

Gordon Back was the Menuhin Competition's first official pianist for its inaugural edition in 1983. After violinist and founder Yehudi Menuhin passed away in 1999, Back was invited to be the Artistic Director from 2002.

Since then, Back and his team have transformed the competition into a major international event, hosting it biannually in different cities around the world.

The competition was hosted in Oslo in 2010, Beijing in 2012, Austin in 2014, and celebrated the Menuhin Centenary in London in 2016. The following competitions were hosted in Geneva in 2018 and most recently in Richmond, VA in 2021.

The 2021 event was the first-ever entirely virtual Menuhin Competition. Streamed globally last May, it attracted more than six million viewers.

The competition invites 44 of the world's young violinists, all under the age of 22, to compete and develop into the next generation of great artists.

Past prizewinners include the likes of Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Tasmin Little, Julia Fischer, Ilya Gringolts — and more recently Ray Chen, Chad Hoopes, and Stephen Waarts.

“It has been a joy and a privilege to serve the Menuhin Competition as Artistic Director for over two decades," Back told The Violin Channel. "I am proud to have helped inspire, and support, so many talented young musicians. I hope that the Competition continues to thrive and I will miss it tremendously."

Alongside his work with the Menuhin Academy, Gordon Back serves as the Artistic Director of the Gower Festival, Chairman of the Vendome Prize piano competition, and Artistic Advisor of the Hattori Foundation.

As an internationally renowned pianist, he has performed and recorded with artists such as Yehudi Menuhin, Nathan Milstein, Maxim Vengerov, Aaron Rosand, Josef Suk, Sarah Chang, Yo Yo Ma, Ko Iwasaki, Leonidas Kavakos, and the Cleveland Quartet.

As the youngest ever appointed professor to join the faculty of London's Guildhall School of Music in 1974, where he served as head of the Department of Accompaniment in 1980.

Back was also an official accompanist to major international violin competitions including the Queen Elisabeth Competition, the Carl Flesch Competition, the International Tchaikovsky Competition, the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.