Main menu:
XII Competition '10
Looking for tomorrow soloists.
In a period of international crisis of the music market has the existence of the International Violin Competition "Cittą di Brescia" got any sense?
One would instinctively give up because it is difficult nowadays to live on Classical Music. But it is in these very moments of difficulty that a stronger need to give some help to young musicians who are living through this particular moment arises.
When in 2004 Maestro Conter invited me to be Artistic Director of the Competition, I accepted immediately. I remembered how important it had been for me to win an International Violin Competition ( Viotti in Vercelli in 1987 ) without which it would have been much harder to find my way in the world of high level concert performances.
That is why my principal effort is going to be that of offering the young candidates internationally important opportunities of performing in the hope that this will help them enter a world that might otherwise remain closed to them.
The quality of judgement is closely connected to the quality of who gives it and that is why the level of the Jury is always going to be as high as possible and linked to the world of playing and producing music rather than simply teaching and organizing it.
Only those who actually tread the boards can understand whether a young performer has the right qualities to face the life of a musician at such a high level. The recollection of Yehudi Menuhin proclaiming me as the winner in Vercelli is so vivid in my mind that it is not possible to avoid understanding the profound and symbolic meaning of a young musician being encouraged by an illustrious older colleague to undertake the most beautiful but also most difficult career in the world.
I'm sure that the recent admission of the Brescia Prize to the World Federation of International Music Competitions in Geneva will help the "Cittą di Brescia" become a prestigious international display for future violin soloists.
Domenico Nordio, Artistic Director