The 34rd edition of the Concours Luxembourgeois pour Jeunes Solistes & European Competition for Young Soloists took place on Sunday, November 12, 2017. The disciplines for this year’s European segment of the competition were clarinet, saxophone and chamber music.
The event was organised by the UGDA Music School in close cooperation with the Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg. A total of 127 talented young musicians, 118 soloists and 3 ensembles (9 candidates) from 15 different nationalities presented themselves before an international jury.The musical presentation was of high quality, both on the national and international level. In the framework of the competition, the UGDA Music School, with the generous support of the society of authors’ rights SACEM Luxembourg, commissioned the composers Oliver Dartevelle, Luc Grethen and Valérie Knabe to create 3 pieces which were premiered during the competition.
The EMCY prize for 2017 was awarded to the saxophone quartet Manneken-Pis. The top laureates of the Concours Luxembourgeois pour Jeunes Solistes were Julie Colin and Annkathrin Maroth (flute), Carolina Duraes de Matos Simoes and Daniel Migliosi (trumpet), Dino Ajdarpasic and Pit Crochet (trombone), Val Kravos (piano), André Wintgens (violin) and for the European Competition for Young Soloists were Ruben Raffaele Stanga (clarinet) (Luxembourg), Beatrice Gadeikyte (saxophone) (Lithuania) and the Saxophone quartet Manneken-Pis (Belgium) composed of Valentin Bouland, Maayan James, Victor Pellicer and Nicola Peretto.
The closing concert was given by laureates from the EMCY member competitions, including: Laetitia Shi (piano), Yanis Grisó(violin) accompanied by Dina Juchem on the piano and Nick Engel (trombone bass) accompanied by Annie Kraus on the piano as well as the Spanish saxophone quartet “Kebyart Ensemble” made up of Pere Méndez (soprano saxophone), Victor Serra (alto saxophone), Robert Seara (tenor saxophone) and Daniel Miguel (baritone saxophone). The Kebyart Ensemble performed Elena Rykova’s award winning contemporary composition Brain-ring in the frame work of the “Première! – GIVE MUSIC A FUTURE” a project co-funded by the Creative Europe programme. It was an excellent example bringing together classical and contemporary repertoire.
We would like to give a special thanks to the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education. Furthermore, we would like to thank all the institutions, sponsors and protectors who support the competition, notably the Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg which allows us to organise this competition every year and helps promote young musical talents from Luxembourg.
