25 year old Italian-Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti has been awarded 1st prize at the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors' Competition, in Salzburg, Austria.
Selected from 65 entrants, Lorenzo will receive €15,000 (US $17,000) and a prestigious opportunity to conduct the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at next year's Salzburg Felsenreitschule.
“It is an incredible joy … I am very proud, and I will not forget this experience,’ Lorenzo, the son of famed Swiss conductor Marcello Viotti, has said.
Lorenzo is a graduate of the Lyon and Vienna Conservatories - and in addition to his emerging conducting career has performed as a percussionist with the Vienna Philharmonic.
He was also awarded 1st prize at the 2013 Cadaques International Conducting Competition.
