Winners Announced at Jean Sibelius Violin Competition

Culminating in an award ceremony on May 29, the Jean Sibelius International Violin Competition announced its 2022 winners.

Winner VC Artist Inmo Yang received a cash prize of 30,000 euros, a mentoring prize from Pekka Kuusisto and Sakari Oramo, and a product prize sponsored by Genelec Oy. For the first time in the competition, the winner was also awarded with an NFT trophy by Yle Innovations in cooperation with the violin competition.

In addition, Yang was rewarded with a loan of a fine violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini from Turin dated 1772, kindly loaned by Jane Ng through J & A Beare and the Beare’s International Violin Society. The award was presented by So-Ock Kim of Beares International Violin Society. He was also given a prize of 2,000 € for the best performance of Magnus Lindberg's commissioned work “Caprice.”

VC Young Artist Nathan Meltzer received a cash prize of 20,000 euros and a product prize from Genelec Oy, while VC Young Artist Dmytro Udovychenko received a cash prize of 15,000 euros.

The other three finalists — VC Young Artist Diana Adamyan, VC Young Artist Yesong Sophie Lee, and Georgii Moroz — were awarded a 3,000 euro recognition prize and all competitors who made it to the semi-finals were awarded the Sibelius stipend of 1,000 euros.

Held in the Sibelius Academy R building and Helsinki Music Centre, in the finals, the competitors performed as soloists with The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra led by Anna-Maria Helsing and The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra led by Dima Slobodeniouk. They performed two violin concertos, one by Jean Sibelius and one of the performer's choice.

The 2022 jury was comprised of Sakari Oramo (Chairman), Ilya Kaler, Ida Kavafian, Nam Yun Kim, Henning Kraggerud, Lucie Robert, Daniel Rowland, Elina Vähälä, and Tong Weidong.

You can view each round of the competition either live or on-demand here.

A graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Miriam Fried, and a current student of Antje Weithaas at the "Hanns Eisler" Hochschule für Musik, Yang is a former major prize winner at the Munetsugu Angel, Joseph Joachim, Tchaikovsky, Menuhin, and Kloster Schontal International Violin Competitions. In 2015, he was awarded the prestigious 1st prize at the Paganini International Violin Competition, aged just 19-years-old. In 2021, he released his second Deutsche Grammophon album [The Genetics of Strings], in which he explored the history of strings.