The International Competitions for Young Musicians “Ohrid Pearls” took place last week in the Cathedral church “St. Sofia” – Ohrid, North Macedonia, from 15th to 20th June 2022.
This year disciplines were:
This year, as in the previous twenty editions, the large audience in the church of St. Sofia enjoyed ten virtuoso performances at the Final Concert. The commission had the difficult task of selecting the most successful among them. The “Grand Prix” award, a cash prize in the amount of 3,000 euros and valuable Ohrid pearl jewelry was won by the piano trio from the Czech Republic consisting of Kristijan Mraкek – violin, Dominik Velek – cello and Veronika Jaklova – piano. The award was presented by the president of the competition Gjorge Ulyshev.
For this occasion, the young artists performed the “Piano Trio” op. 8 br. 1 by Johannes Brahms. The director of the most prestigious event in the field of culture, the Ohrid Summer Festival, Mrs. Natasa Popovic, presented the winners with special gifts and invited them to perform in the next edition of the Festival in 2023 with a Recital on the Podium of Young Artists.
Second place in the general classification and a cash prize of 2000 euros was won by the young violinist from the Czech Republic Christian Mracek, and he presented himself with an excellent performance at the violin concerto in De Dur by Ilic Tchaikovsky, and third place and a cash prize of 1000 euros was won by the young pianist Iva Vukovic from Serbia. She performed the virtuoso “Paraphrase on a theme from Franz Liszt Verdi’s opera Rigoletto”.
Below you can find all the prize winners of the 2022’s edition:
FIRST PRIZE 3000 € & Grand Prix “Ohrid pearls”
Piano trio – Czech Republic
Kristian Mráček – violin, Dominik Velek – cello, Veronika Jaklová – piano
SECOND PRIZE 2000 €
Kristian Mráček – Czech Republic, violin
THIRD PRIZE 1000 €
Iva Vuković – Serbia, piano
SPECIAL PRIZES
EMCY prize: Zala Eva Kocijančič – Austria, violin
SOCOM prize winner for best performance of a piece by a Macedonian composer (100€): Darko Arsov – N. Macedonia, piano (Blagoj Canev: “Ovčepolska Suita”)
“TOMISLAV ZOGRAFSKI” foundation prize winners:
SMUM recital at the annual Golden Lira festival: Arsenij Angeleski – N. Macedonia, piano
San Francisco state university – USA special prize : Not awarded
The International competition of young musicians has been held every year since 2002 in the beautiful setting of Lake Ohrid. Every year, a number of young musicians take part in this competitions. The competition rounds and the seminars during it, are an important and constant part of music education for young musicians. The purpose of the competition is to activate extraordinarily talented pupils and students, to notice the level of progress of music education, and to enable gifted pupils to become professional artists.
