Winners Announced at the 2024 Primrose International Viola Competition

Violist Emad Zolfaghari won first prize in this year's competition

The 17th Primrose International Viola Competition, presented by The Colburn School and the American Viola Society, recently came to a close at Colburn School’s Zipper Hall. Featuring the world's best and most promising young violists, all live rounds are now available for playback on The Violin Channel.

Canadian Emad Zolfaghari has been named the first-prize winner and will receive $15,000. Emad will also receive an invitation to perform at the 2026 American Viola Society Festival and an invitation to the semi-finals of the Concert Artists Guild Competition. He also won the Audience Prize after members of the audience voted for their favorite competitor in the Final Round.

Kinga Wojdalska won second prize and $10,000, while Andy Park won third prize and $5,000.

Kinga Wojdalska also won the Transcriptions Prize and received $1,000, for her transcription and performance of Grażyna Bacewicz’s Polish Capriccio.

Semi-finalist Mao Konishi won the Illumination Prize for best performance of a work by an underrepresented composer demographic and received $1,000, for her performance of Akira Nishimura’s Sonata for Viola Solo No. 2 “Mantra on the C string.”

During the final competition round, Emad Zolfaghari performed Bela Bartók’s Viola Concerto (ed. Serly) and Kinga Wojdalska and Andy Park performed William Walton’s Viola Concerto with the Colburn Orchestra, led by Elias Peter Brown, a Salonen Fellow in the Negaunee Conducting Program at the Colburn Conservatory.

The live round competition jury included  Ayane Kozasa (Jury Chairman, United States), Atar Arad, Cathy Basrak, Ensik Choi, Steven Dann, and Geraldine Walther.

Accepted into the Curtis Institute of Music at age 16, Emad Zolfaghari currently studies with Hsin-Yun Huang. He is a former first-prize winner of the Irving M. Klein International String Competition and the International Morningside Music Bridge Competition. He is the second-prize winner of the Johansen International String Competition and third-prize winner of the OSM String Competition. Zolfaghari has appeared as a soloist with several major symphony orchestras — including l’Orchestre Métropolitain under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Montreal Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Philharmonic, Oakville Chamber Orchestra, and National Metropolitan Philharmonic. His previous mentors include Theresa Rudolph, Caroline Coade, and Shanda Lowery-Sachs.

His other awards include grand prize at the OMNI Music Competition, first prize at the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra Competition, Guelph Symphony Orchestra Competition, and Oakville Chamber Orchestra Competition, and second prize at the Ronald Sachs International Music Competition. Zolfaghari has attended Morningside Music Bridge, the Center Stage Strings festival as a junior faculty member, the Perlman Music Program, and Music from Angel Fire.