Sueye Park Wins 2025 International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition

Park receives €30,000 plus a Guadagnini 1777 “ex Sasson” violin

The 13th International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition recently came to a close at the Helsinki Music Centre.

First prize and €30,000 went to violinist Sueye Park. She also received the Instrument loan prize which includes A G.B. Guadagnini 1777 “ex Sasson” violin, provided for one year by Dr David Li through Beare’s International Violin Society.

Second prize and €20,000 was given to Minami Yoshida. She also received the €3,000 award for the Best Performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto.

Third prize and €15,000 was awarded to VC Artist Claire Wells.

The other three finalists, Gabrielle Després, Otto Antikainen, and Amia Janicki, each received a recognition prize of €3,000. The Best Performance of the Commissioned Work (€2,000) was given to Amia Janicki.

The finalists performed with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Dima Slobodeniouk, and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra with conductors Pietari Inkinen and Geoffrey Paterson (both stepped in for Pekka Kuusisto, who withdrew for health reasons).

In addition to performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto, the final featured modern violin concertos for the first time in the competition's history.

The jury, chaired by conductor John Storgårds, included violinists Elise Båtnes, Levon Chilingirian, Jinjoo Cho, Sung-Ju Lee, Réka Szilvay, and conductor-violinist Jan Söderblom.

Born in South Korea in 2000, Sueye Park began studying the violin at the age of four. She studied with Ulf Wallin at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin and later at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Clive Brown.

Park has performed with orchestras including the Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Korean Symphony Orchestra, KBS Symphony Orchestra, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. She has performed with Adrian Brendel, Ralf Gothoni, Gary Hoffman, Yoel Levi, tatjana Masurenko, Roland Pöntinen, Anna Rakitina, Nicolas Stavy, and Osmo Vänskä.

Sueye Park has participated in numerous radio and TV broadcasts in Germany, Israel, South Korea, Spain and Sweden. In 2017, her début disc was released, a critically acclaimed recording of the 24 Paganini Caprices [BIS-2282], followed by a recital disc, ‘Salut d’amour’ [BIS-2382]. Her album with works for Violin Solo: ‘Journey Through a Century’ [BIS-2492] was selected as Editor’s Choice as the “Recordings of the Year” by Gramophone in 2021. The 3 Violin Concertos of Isang Yun with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä was released 2022, and the complete works for violin & piano of Karol Szymanowski with the pianist Roland Pöntinen was released in 2023.