Winners Announced at 2022 Classic Strings Cello Competition

The 2022 Classic Strings Cello Competition took place at the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray Music Hall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates for the Final Round, which you can watch here.

50 participants competed, representing 23 nationalities: Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and the USA.

Cellist Michał Balas won first prize and a special prize for the best performance of a Maltese piece. Sydney Lee and Vaclav Petr received second and third prize, respectively. Alexey Zhilin was also given a special prize for the best performance of a compulsory piece.

Balas will be awarded a €50,000 cash prize, along with a tour of ten concerts with an honorarium of €5,000 per concert.

Over the two day Final Round, each finalist performed alongside the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by the competition artistic director, Dmitry Yablonsky.

This year's jury comprised Dominique de Williencourt (France), Boris Andrianov (USA), Suren Bagratuni (USA), Alexander Chaushian (Armenia/UK), Henri Demarquette (France), Julian Lloyd Webber (UK), Philippe Muller (France), Martti Rousi (Finland), Meehae Ryo (South Korea), and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi (Japan).

Classic Strings is also currently hosting the competition for Violin from May 10-23, 2022. The Final Round, to be streamed on The Violin Channel, will be from May 21-23.