The Sir Georg Solti International Conductors' Competition is a German competition for conductors that occurs biennially in Frankfurt, at the Alte Oper. The cooperating music organisations are the Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester and the hr-Sinfonieorchester. The competition was founded in memory of Sir Georg Solti, who led the Frankfurt Opera during 1952–1961. The patroness of the competition for many years was Valerie, Lady Solti, the widow of Sir Georg Solti.
As of 2020 [update] the prize money is: [1]
The audience award is linked to the symbolic handover of an original conducting baton from Sir Georg Solti from his time in Frankfurt.
The winners of the first and second prizes are given the prospect of conducting the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra (concert and opera) and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Other orchestras are holding out the prospect of guest conductors or assistance.
Sir Georg Solti was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor, known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis' influence on Hungarian politics and, being of Jewish background, he fled the increasingly harsh Hungarian anti-Jewish laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. Prohibited from conducting there, he earned a living as a pianist.
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