Candidates Announced for 2020 Menuhin International Violin Competition

The Menuhin Competition has announced the 22 Junior and 22 Senior candidates for the 2020 competition

The Menuhin Competition has today announced the 22 Junior and 22 Senior candidates for the 2020 competition – to be held in Richmond, Virginia, United States from the 14th to the 24th of May, 2020.

Widely recognized as the world’s leading competition for violinists under the age of 22, previous 1st prize winners include VC Artists Ray Chen, Angelo Xiang Yu, Stephen Waarts, Kevin Zhu, Rennosuke Fukuda, Kerson Leong, Yesong Sophie Lee, Ziyu He, Diana Adamyan, Chloe Chua and Christian Li.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP8MCgrp0Jc

The 22 2020 Junior competitors are:

• Hankyoung Chang (12, South Korea/USA)
• Corina Deng (12, Canada/USA)
• Kento Hong (13, USA)
• Yixuan Jiang (15, China)
• Mei Kaneko (14, Japan)
• Dawid Kasprzak (14, Poland)
• Fiona Khuong-Huu (12, USA/Japan/France)
• Seohyun Kim (11, South Korea)
• Sooeon Kim (12, South Korea)
• Kayleigh Kim (15, USA)
• Na Hyun Kyun (14, South Korea/USA)
• Shannon Ma (14, USA)
• Boha Moon (13, South Korea)
• Natsuho Murata (12, Japan)
• Raphael Nussbaumer (13, Switzerland)
• Seohyeon Park (14, South Korea)
• Emrik Revermann (11, Canada/Germany)
• Guido Sant’Anna (14, Brazil)
• Hannah Wan Ching Tam (14, China/USA)
• Keila Wakao (13, Japan / USA)
• Edward Walton (13, Australia/UK)
• Jinan Laurentia Woo (12, South Korea/USA)

The 22 2020 Senior competitors are:

• VC Young Artist María Dueñas (17, Spain/Austria)
• Zachary Brandon (21, USA)
• Maya Anjali Buchanan (19, USA)
• Hana Chang (17, Singapore/Japan/USA)
• Eric Chen (18, Taiwan/USA)
• I-hao Cheng (21, Taiwan/USA)
• Maria Cherkassova (20, Russia)
• Karisa Chiu (20, USA)
• Matthew Hakkarainen (19, USA)
• Molin Han (19, China/UK)
• Joseph Hsia (19, USA)
• Hiroki Kasai (20, Japan/UK)
• Tianyu Liu (20, China/USA)
• Bodhan Luts (15, Ukraine)
• Emma Meinrenken (20, Canada)
• Serin Park (15, South Korea/USA)
• Vikram Francesco Sedona (19, Italy/France)
• Emily Shehi (21, USA)
• Hannah Song (19, USA)
• Claire Wells (18, USA/UK)
• Dayoon You (18, South Korea)
• Simon Zhu (18, Germany)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-JwjDS6-dA&feature=youtu.be

The 44 candidates were chosen from a pool of 321 applicants.

“The applicants are so accomplished at such a young age that it becomes more challenging every year to select the 44 competitors …” Menuhin Competition Artistic Director, Gordon Back has today told The Violin Channel.

“The youngsters play at an exceptional level both musically and technically … each of the competitors who was selected brought some exceptional quality that distinguished them in a field of outstanding applicants … we look forward to seeing and hearing them at the Competition this year in Richmond,” he has said.

The 2020 jury will comprise: violinist Pamela Frank (Chair), violinist and conductor Joji Hattori (Vice-Chair), violinist and entrepreneur Aaron Dworkin, violinists Ning Feng and Soyoung Yoon, cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, pianist Anton Nel – and VC Artists Ray Chen and Noah Bendix-Balgley.

As the competition’s official 2020 media and broadcast partner, The Violin Channel will be providing exclusive rolling-coverage – live from all venues.

Australian funsters, TwoSet Violin will also be in attendence this year acting as roving reporters.

Join us backstage!