International Judges
 
Click on the photograph to view further information.
 
Pierre Amoyal
(France)
Justine Cormack
(New Zealand)
Pamela Frank
(United States)
Mark Kaplan
(United States)
Boris Kuschnir
(Austria)
HU Kun
(China)
Dene Olding
Artistic Consultant
(Australia)
Dr Robin Congreve
Chairman of the Jury
(New Zealand)
 
 

 

 
Pierre Amoyal (France - Switzerland)
 
 
Pierre Amoyal is one of the leading violinists of his generation. Aged 12 he was awarded first prize at the Paris Conservatoire; he then studied for five years in Los Angeles with Jascha Heifetz who invested a long period of close personal guidance. On his return to Paris, Amoyal was immediately engaged by Sir Georg Solti for performances with the Orchestre de Paris, launching him on an international career which has seen him perform regularly with many of the world's great orchestras and conductors. Amoyal is also a successful recording artist with numerous recordings for Decca as well as Harmonia Mundi. At a very young age Amoyal was nominated as a professor at the National Conservatory in Paris; he now teaches at the Lausanne Conservatory and is currently Artistic Director of the Lausanne Summer Music Academy, devoted exclusively to the violin/piano repertoire, which he originated with Alexis Weissenberg in 1991. In 2002 Amoyal created the Camerata of
Lausanne and was awarded the Prix du Rayonnement de la Fondation Vaudoise pour la Promotion et la Creation artistique.
 
In October Amoyal will receive the prestigious Prix de la ville de Lausanne, which is given every three years to someone who has contributed significantly to the culture of the city.

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Justine Cormack (New Zealand) 
 
 
Justine Cormack is the violinist with the New Zealand Trio – Ensemble in Residence at The University of Auckland and she appears regularly around New Zealand as a recitalist, chamber musician, adjudicator and concerto soloist. She is the former Concertmaster of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, has been a member of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and New Zealand Chamber Orchestra and was Concertmaster of the National Youth Orchestra.

A graduate of the University of Canterbury, studying with Jan Tawroszevicz, Cormack went on to complete a Master of Music degree at the San Francisco Conservatory with Isadore Tinkleman and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook under Joyce Robbins and Mitchell Stern. Cormack has taught violin at Wellington’s University of Victoria and she now balances her role as performing artist with that of teacher at The University of Auckland.

Cormack has been singled out for many awards, including a TVNZ Young Achievers Award, two QEII Arts Council Grants, a Fulbright Scholarship, and an NZSO Alex Lindsay Memorial Award and was runner up in the 1990 TVNZ Young Musicians’ competition.

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Pamela Frank (United States)

 
Pamela Frank has performed regularly with today's most distinguished soloists and ensembles, including such orchestras as those of Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Baltimore, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Israel philharmonics under esteemed conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Chrisoph von Dohnanyi, Bernard Haitink, Seiji Ozawa, Andre Previn, and Leonard Slatkin.   As a recitalist, she is often heard in the major cities of the world. Her chamber music projects include performances with such artists as Peter Serkin, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and her father, Claude Frank, and frequent appearances with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Musicians from Marlboro. She was awarded a coveted Avery Fisher Prize in 1999.
 
With Claude Frank at the piano, she has recorded the complete Beethoven sonata cycle for Music Masters Classics and an all-Schubert disc. For Sony Classical Ms. Frank recorded the Chopin Piano Trio and Schubert Trout Quintet with Mr. Ax and Mr. Ma. On Decca she has recorded all of the Mozart violin concertos, the Dvorák concerto, and, with Peter Serkin, the complete Brahms sonata cycle.  She is featured on the soundtrack to the film "Immortal Beloved".
 
In addition to being one of the decade's most sought-after and celebrated violinists, Ms Frank is also emerging as a major pedagogue.  She is on the faculties of the Curtis School of Music, the Peabody Conservatory and SUNY Stony Brook, and her recent summer teaching activities have included the Steans Institute at Ravinia, the Sarasota Music Festival, Music @ Menlo, the Heifetz Academy, and masterclasses at LyricaFest, the Mannes Beethoven Institute, the NYU Summer Programs, Verbier, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  She helped Seiji Ozawa inaugurate a string quartet Academy in Switzerland in 2005.  An avid adjudicator, she serves on the juries of Young Concert Artists, Concert Artists Guild, and the Menuhin and Indianapolis International Violin Competitions.

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Mark Kaplan (United States)
 
 
Mark Kaplan has established himself as one of the leading violinists of his generation.  His consummate artistry has resulted in engagements with nearly every major American orchestra including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, the Chicago and National Symphony Orchestras, and the symphony orchestras of St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Minnesota, Cincinnati and Indianapolis. 
 
Mark has also maintained a flourishing career in Europe since his debut there in 1975 when he was asked on short notice to substitute for Pinchas Zukerman in a concert conducted by Lawrence Foster in Cologne.  This led to engagements with the Berlin Philharmonic and subsequent concerti and recital seasons in London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Zurich, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Milan. 

In addition to his solo appearances, Mark is also devoted to chamber music.  From 1982 to 2000 he performed and recorded extensively with cellist Colin Carr and the late pianist David Golub, as the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio.  Now, together with pianist Yael Weiss and cellist Clancy Newman, Mark is continuing that distinguishing tradition with their trio, Sequenza. 

Mark has a wide range of repertoire currently available on compact disc.  Recently released from Koch International Classics are concerti of Berg and Stravinsky, the Lalo Symphonie Espagnol and the Concierto Espagnol of Joan Manen, all under the baton of Lawrence Foster. 
 
Since 2005 Mark has been Professor of Violin at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music, and prior to that he served as Professor with Distinction at UCLA.  He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Dorothy DeLay and recipient of the Fritz Kreisler Memorial Scholarship.  Mark Kaplan plays a violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1685.  It is named The Marquis after the Marchese Spinola, whose family owned the violin for several generations.

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Boris Kuschnir (Austria)

 
Boris Kuschnir was born in Kiev in 1948 and studied the violin at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire with Boris Belenky and chamber music with Valentin Berlinsky of the Borodin Quartet. His many encounters with Dmitri Shostakovich and David Oistrach (with whom he also studied), had a lasting influence on his artistic development.

He has won numerous prizes at international violin and chamber music competitions (Paris, Belgrade, Sion, Trapani, Bratislava, Florence, Trieste, Hamburg). In 1970 he founded the Moscow String Quartet and remained a member until 1979.

He became an Austrian citizen in 1982, a Professor at the Conservatoire Vienna Private University in 1984 and also a Professor at the University of Music in Graz in 1999. His reputation as a teacher won international recognition with the recent outstanding success of his pupils, Julian Rachlin (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, Amsterdam, 1988), Nikolaj Znaider (1st Prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, Brussels, 1997), Lidia Baich (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, 1998), Dalibor Karvay (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, Berlin 2002), Alexandra Soumm (1st Prize EBU Grand Prix for Young Musicians, Lucerne 2004), Kirill Kobantschenko, Tibor Kovac, Eugeni Andrussenko (all violinists at the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra), Melina Mandozzi (Guest leader at the London Symphony Orchestra) and Vahid Khadem-Missagh (Leader of the Niederösterreichische Tonkünstler Orchestra). At the same time he constantly gives masterclasses and is a jury member of various international music competitions (such as Quenn Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, Nicolo Paganini Competition in Genua, Tibor Varga Competition in Switzerland, Eurovision Competition).

In 1984 Boris Kuschnir founded the Wiener Schubert Trio which received many prestigious awards, among them the Mozart Interpretationspreis 1988 and the Prize of the Ernst von Siemens foundation 1990. Boris Kuschnir played as a soloist and a chamber musician in some of the world's most illustrious venues: the Musikverein Vienna, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, La Fenice in Venice, the Wigmore Hall London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, as well as in the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire Moscow and the Ishibashi Memorial Hall in Tokyo. He has taken part in numerous festivals such as Salzburger Festspiele, Gidon Kremer's Lockenhaus Festival, Wiener Festwochen, Besançon, Wahington, Spoleto, Naples, Stresa, Bregenzer Festspiele, Meklenburg-Vorpommen, Swiatoslaw Richter Winterfestival/Moscow.

Boris Kuschnir appears with such illustrious partners as L. Leonskaja, B. Berezovsky, E. Bashkirova, L. O. Andsnes, J. Rachlin, N. Znaider, M. Vengerov, D. Sitkovetsky, R. Capucon, J. Bashmet, G. Caussé, N. Imai, B. Pergamenschikow, S. Isserlis, G. Capucon, V. Hagen (Hagen Quartet), H. Beyerle, T. Kakuska, V. Erben (Alban Berg Quartet) and M. Kopelman (Borodin Quartet).

Both as soloist and chamber musician Boris Kuschnir made numerous recordings, notably the complete Mozart piano trios for EMI, which were released in the Mozart year of 1991.

In 1993 he founded the Vienna Brahms Trio which made their highly acclaimed debut at the Gidon Kremer's Lockenhaus Festival in Austria. In 1996, the Trio won First Prize at the 9th International Chamber Music Competition in Illzach, France. Their recording of Schumann's complete works for Piano trio was released on the Naxos label in 1999.

In 2003 he was co-founder of the Kopelman quartet with which he is giving concert all over the world since.

Boris Kuschnir was awarded the use of a Stradivarius violin (La Rouse Boughton, 1703) by the Austrian National Bank in recognition of his services to music.

www.boriskuschnir.com

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HU Kun (China - United Kingdom)


HU Kun was born into a musical family, a child protégé who at age three started to study the violin with his father Prof. HU Wei Ming, and who went on the stage with his mother Prof. Pen Shi Jun accompanying him on the piano when he was seven, having already won major prizes in his city for his school during the Cultural Revolution. In 1976 he went to Beijing and played the Paganini D major Concerto which brought him a nickname over night "The little genius from Sichuan".

In 1980, after winning 5th Prize at the Sibelius International Violin Competition, he was welcomed back to China as a national hero. He had also won both the Northern Section and the National Selective Competition for the Sibelius Competition, becoming the first person to have won an international violin competition prize in Chinese music history. He was awarded a Secondary Military Medal and was promoted to Battalion Commander at the age of 18 years and was also given an exceptional statue by the Culture Minister to enter the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing to continue his studies with Prof. Lin Yiao Ji. He also studied conducting with Prof. Xu Xin at the same time.

HU Kun then graduated in 1984 as one of only two Exceptional Graduates of the Year from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music and was sent by the Chinese government to study at the Menuhin Academy with Alberto Lysy in Gstaad, Switzerland. A few months later he became the 4th prize winner and the TV&Radio public 1st prize winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium. Three months later he won the 1st Prize (plus four category prizes) of the Menuhin Competition. He was then invited by Lord Yehudi Menuhin to London to become his protégé and the only private student. The teacher and student played all over the world together, and made several recordings.

HU Kun has played with the world's leading orchestras (Royal Philharmonic, Orchestra de Paris, Berlin Radio, Leipzig Radio, BBC Orchestras, Moscow States, China National Symphony and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra…), continued winning international prizes (Francescatti, Lipizer, Palm Beach…), and gave world premiere performances (Ronald Stevenson Concerto which was dedicated to Lord Yehudi in memory of Georges Enesco). HU Kun has made recordings with Nimbus, EMI, ASV, Chamber Sound, China Records, including music of Barber, Sibelius, Katchaturian, Prokofiev, Vivaldi, Bach, Bernstein, Hoddinott, Wieniawski, Saint-Saens and Chinese Violin Music. Kun has performed the European premiere of Tan Dun’s violin concerto at the Dresden Festival with the Dresdner Sinfoniker which was recorded by Mid German Radio and TV. A documentary film "The Story of HU Kun" has been shown over 47 countries worldwide.

Besides Kun's exciting performing career, he is also a conductor, an active adjudicator, and a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. He has taught at the School of Music Indiana University and the Yehudi Menuhin School. He has also been appointed as a guest Prof. at the Central Conservatory of Music--Beijing, Sichuan Conservatory--Chengdu and Xinhai Conservatory--Guangzhou.

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Dene Olding (Australia) - Artistic Consultant

 
 
Dene Olding, recognised as one of Australia's most outstanding instrumentalists, has already achieved a distinguished career in many aspects of musical life. As a soloist, he has won many awards including that of Laureate of the Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition. He has performed over 40 concertos, including many premičres, with some of the world's leading conductors and orchestras.
 
He has worked with, among others, Edo de Waart, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Stuart Challender, Sir Charles Mackerras, Jorge Mester, Hiroyuki Iwaki, Gunther Herbig, Werner Andreas Albert and David Porcelijn.
 
Currently, Concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, he is also widely-known as a chamber musician. He is first violinist for the Australia Ensemble and  the Goldner String Quartet and regularly tours in over twenty-five countries with these ensembles. He combines these many activities with conducting and directing and lives in Sydney with his wife, violist Irina Morozova and son Nikolai.
 

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Dr Robin Congreve (New Zealand) - Chairman of the Jury
 
Dr Congreve was for 10 years a partner in Russell McVeagh McKenzie Bartleet and has since then been a director of a number of public and private companies including Lion Nathan Ltd, BNZ, Comalco NZ Ltd and Tru-Test Ltd.  He is a principal of Oceania & Eastern, a New Zealand private equity group and investor in NeuronZ, EndocrinZ and now Neuren.
 
Robin was the founding chairman of the Auckland Medical School Foundation and it was that interest that led to the formation of NeuronZ initially within Auckland University and to the subsequent development of both NeuronZ and EndocrinZ.
 
Dr Congreve is on the Art Gallery Foundation Board, Founder & Principal Donor of The Walters Prize, Governor of Arts Foundation, ex Chairman of the New Zealand Opera and Member of Museum of Modern Art and Tate International Councils.

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