 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2010) |
IBLA International Competition is a Sicilian music competition.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2010) |
IBLA International Competition is a Sicilian music competition.
The IBLA Awards have been officially commended by New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, New York State Governor George E. Pataki, United States Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, Empire State Development Chairman Charles Gargano and IBLA winners have received critical acclaim by such writers as Pulitzer Prize winning music critic Martin Bernheimer on MSNBC Living's Young Artists Series.
Each summer hundreds of pianists, singers, composers and instrumentalists representing Italy, France, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, Albania, the Czech Republic, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Republic of Georgia, Uzbekistan, Siberia, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Ghana, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Canada and the United States come to the IBLA Grand Prize International Music Competitions, which take place in Ragusa Ibla, Sicily, with hopes of being selected for the IBLA International Roster.
While in Sicily, through the co-operation of the Mayors of Chiaramonte, Comiso, Ispica, Pozzallo, Santa Croce, Camerina and Vittoria, outstanding musicians are given the opportunity to perform in open-air concerts for the citizens of each of these communities.
In the words of journalist, music critic and IBLA jury member Gordon Sparber,
"... the sunbaked island of Sicily, the largest and historically richest in the Mediterranean, is the scene of the IBLA Grand Prize, a music competition held in a hall buried among the clusters of 17th - 18th - century stone buildings that crowd the little threads of streets. The rocky town ... lies just a few miles from where the Ionian and Mediterranean meet at Sicily's southernmost tip. Hearing piano-playing in this kind of setting is amazing. It is, I imagine, like opening an ornate and ancient casket only to find it is stocked with glittering gems."
The 2001 IBLA Awards at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall were in memory of Lucia Evangelista, beloved wife of Jerome Hines, who was in her own right a great and noted soprano in the international community of operatic music.
The IBLA International Jury is the largest and most diverse among international competitions and comprises representatives from the most important music institutions worldwide such as:
Since the first edition of the IBLA Grand Prize on the occasion of the Christopher Columbus Festival 1492-1992 celebrating the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America, the IBLA Foundation has been dedicated to discovering new talent from around the world. Winners are assisted in establishing concert careers by facilitating their access to performance venues and professional contacts.
Throughout the years the IBLA Grand Prize winners have received the opportunity to be presented in such prestigious venues as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Tchaikovsky Bolshoi Hall in Moscow, Carnegie Recital Hall and to perform for the President of Italy, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro at the Great Hall of the University of Rome, for world-renowned Metropolitan Opera sopranos Licia Albanese and Anna Moffo at Steinway Hall and at the United Nations' Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium. With the support of Baroness Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò, IBLA Winners have also performed at New York University's Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò for Metropolitan Opera soprano and Lucine Amara, for pianists Jerome Lowenthal of the Juilliard School, Ursula Opens from Northwestern University and for Mario Delliponti of the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milano. With the support of the Honorable Senator Yvette Swan, Minister of Cultural Affairs, IBLA winners have been presented in Bermuda on the occasion of the Life Time Achievement Awards. IBLA Winners have also been presented in performance/seminar at McGill University in Montreal and at the Queen's University in Kingston, Canada as well as at the Juilliard School, the University of Washington in Seattle, the North Carolina School of the Arts and the University of Arkansas. In cooperation with the YAMAHA Corporation of America, IBLA Foundation offers a Master Class Series which enables winners to refine their performances through the experience of such masters as Fernando Laires and Nelita True of the Eastman School of Music and Jerome Lowenthal of the Juilliard School.
The IBLA Foundation with the cooperation of the Office of the Mayor, the Sister Cities Commission, Chamber of Commerce and the Public Library System of Little Rock, Arkansas, offers an annual tour of public concerts and community outreach programs which allows IBLA Winners to perform for and interact with hundreds of local students and families by sharing their professional experience and artistic talents.
Through the support of the late pianist Angel Chen, Executive Director of Angelok Records, the IBLA Jordania Prize has offered annually a Moscow debut and CD recording at the Tchaikowsky Bolshoi Hall with the Russian Federal Orchestra conducted by Maestro Vaktang Jordania.
Academic scholarships have been offered to IBLA Winners by the North Carolina School of the Arts, the University of Iowa, the University of Northern Iowa, Elon College in North Carolina, the University of SouthWestern Louisiana, the DIT Music College in Dublin and the Scicli International Music Academy in Sicily.
With the support of Chancellor Alexander Ewing from the North Carolina School of the Arts, the IBLA Foundation has also presented modern dance performances in Italy as well as in the USA through the Human Dance Company and the works of choreographer Michael Yasenak.
"Complex movements of human bodies symbolized the ambiguities of spiritual experience ... flesh and spirit carried on an especially intense conversation ... compelling ... their mystical fervor was combined with rational confusion .... mystery and ecstasy ... attested to Mr. Yasenak's powers of choreographic invention" [1]
IBLA winners have received worldwide critical acclaim with praises.
The Juilliard School, often abbreviated simply as Juilliard, is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became the Juilliard School, named after its principal benefactor Augustus D. Juilliard. Juilliard is one of the most prestigious performing arts schools in the world.
Vakhtang Jordania was a Georgian conductor.
Licia Albanese was an Italian-born American operatic soprano. Noted especially for her portrayals of the lyric heroines of Verdi and Puccini, Albanese was a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera from 1940 to 1966. She also made many recordings and was chairwoman of The Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, which is dedicated to assisting young artists and singers.
Daejin Kim is a South Korean pianist, an alumnus of the Juilliard School. He won the first prize in the 6th Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition - which is called Cleveland Competition today, in 1985. Kim is a professor of piano, the Dean of the School of Music at the Korea National University of Arts, and the music director of the Changwon Philharmonic Orchestra.
Peng-Peng Gong, formerly known as his stage name Peng Peng, is a Chinese classical composer and pianist born on July 3, 1992. Described by The Washington Post as an artist "with the confidence of a weathered veteran and a welcome unbridled quality to his playing", he has established himself as one of the most gifted young artists of his generation. At 18, he has become an internationally active concert pianist and a six-time American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers National Award-winning composer in consecutive years since 2006. He was among the youngest pianists to be officially signed to the artist roster of the renowned Opus 3 Artists in 2007 at age 14, and the youngest composer to be signed by the [Lauren Keiser Music Publishing] in 2009 at age 16. Since 2005, he concertized and toured intensely in the North America, South America, Europe, and China, appearing in over a hundred solo and orchestral engagements. He was invited twice, on personal request, by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to perform for the United States Congress.
Lynn Chang is a Chinese American violinist known for his work as both a soloist and a chamber musician. Chang is a founding member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and is currently a faculty member at MIT, Boston University, the Boston Conservatory, and the New England Conservatory of Music.
Frank Lévy is a Swiss-American classical pianist and piano teacher.
Min Kwon is a Korean-American pianist and professor of piano at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
Yoonjung "Yoonie" Han is a South Korean-born American classical pianist.
Ran Dank is an Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, NY, USA.
William Albert Beller was an American concert pianist and professor of music at Marquette University and Columbia University. He was deemed a musical prodigy when he was 4 years old. He had also taught piano at the Bronx House Music School in the 1930s.
Chamber Orchestra of New York is a professional orchestra founded as Chamber Orchestra of New York - Ottorino Respighi by the Italian composer and conductor Salvatore Di Vittorio. It was established on March 27, 2006, on the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with its debut concert on October 11, 2007 at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall as part of the inaugural 2007/2008 Season.
Soyeon Kate Lee (이소연) is a Korean-American classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, US. She is on the College and Pre-College piano faculty at the Juilliard School.
Ory Shihor is an Israeli-American pianist, pedagogue, and co-founder of the Los Angeles based Ory Shihor Institute.
Panayis Lyras, earlier known as Panaghis Lykiardopoulos or Panayis Lykiardopoulos, is an American classical pianist.
Edith WiensOC is a Canadian opera, recital and concert singer with a soprano voice.
Gaston Rivero is an Uruguayan-US American operatic tenor.
The National Youth Orchestra of China is a full symphony youth orchestra composed of approximately 100 Chinese musicians aged 14 to 21 years old. Students from all over China audition to participate in a two-week training residency before performing alongside a renowned soloist and conductor in premier venues throughout the world.
Henry Kramer is an American pianist.
The Silver–Garburg Piano Duo is a musical duo consisting of Israeli pianists Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg, known for its performances of classical and contemporary music, as well as original transcriptions and arrangements of works for piano four-hands and two pianos.