On Saturday August 24 in Sion, Corina Deng (16, Canada) won First Prize in the 4th Tibor Junior International Violin Competition, while Viktor Vasilev (17, Bulgaria) and Qingyuan Yang (14, China/UK) took Second and Third Prize respectively. In the final, the three winners were accompanied by the South Czech Philharmonic conducted by Jan Talich, and interacted with mezzo-soprano Marie-Claude Chappuis. A total of 13 young violinists aged between 14 and 17 took part in the public rounds of the Competition, whose Jury was chaired by Pavel Vernikov.

Corina Deng walked away with three other prizes: the Audience Prize, the Calma Management Prize (a year’s placement for concerts in Europe) and the Prize for Best Interpretation of the compulsory work Onde, punti, voci, a creation commissioned from Ana Sokolović, which was performed as a world premiere by all candidates in the 2nd round. Qingyuan Yang was awarded the Jury Prize for the “over 20s”.

This year, three Foundation Prizes were awarded. Two bows were offered to Viktor Vasilev (a bow by Louis Bazin circa 1940) and Natalia Dragan (a recent bow by S. Alexandre, Paris). The latter candidate (15, Poland) only reached the 2nd round of the Competition. A Nicola Gagliano circa 1735 violin was made available by Atelier Schilbach to Qingyuan Yang for one year. Insurance for this precious instrument is provided by Sinfonima Suisse. With these prizes, the Sion Violon Musique Foundation wishes to support candidates who do not have a bow/violin to match their talent.

In addition to President Pavel Vernikov and composer Ana Sokolović, the Jury was made up of Marie-Claude Chappuis (Switzerland), Mario Hossen (Bulgaria-Austria), Alessandro Padovan (Italy) and Alexandre Vinnitski (Finland). Open to all interested parties, the “over 20s” Jury was coached by musicologist Marie Favre.

The final concert featured an interlude by Seohyun Kim, winner of the Tibor Varga 2023 International Violin Competition. It was live-streamed on the Internet and will be rebroadcast by the Canal 9 television channel.

30 young talents from all over the world (2022: 31, 2021: 37) had registered to take part in this 4th edition of the Tibor Junior Competition. After a video pre-selection, the Jury selected 15 candidates, 13 of whom finally competed in the public rounds from August 20 to 24: 8 women and 5 men, with an average age of almost 16. These candidates came from 3 continents and 11 different countries