The Hannover International Violin Competition has chosen the participants for this year's fourth edition. 40 violinists from 18 countries will be playing to win the prestigious competition from November 5th to 18th in the capital city of Lower Saxony, Germany. The competition is presented triennially by the Foundation of Lower Saxony in cooperation with the Hannover Academy of Music and Theater Arts, the Lower Saxony State Theater of Hannover and the North German Broadcasting Corporation. It is dedicated to Joseph Joachim, who was soloist and orchestra leader at Hannover's opera house from 1853 to 1868.
The response to the worldwide call for applications was overwhelming. According to Linda Anne Engelhardt, the Executive Director of the competition, more than 700 young musicians requested information about the competition, more than twice as many as in 1997. 120 candidates from 30 countries were presented to the International Selection Committee. Japan, Korea, Germany, Russia and the USA led the field of applicant nationalities. The average age of the 120 applicants was 23 years; 67 of them were women, 53 men.
The International Selection Committee was a group of true experts. Professor Tuomas Haapanen (Helsinki, Finland), Professor Erich Gruenberg (London, England) and – from Joseph Joachim's childhood home city – Professor Eszter Perényi (Budapest, Hungary) joined the artistic director of the competition, Professor Krzysztof Wegrzyn (Hannover) to listen to recordings and chose the competitors. »It is our competition's mission to encourage artistic personalities who have more to offer than mere technical expertise«, Wegrzyn stressed. »I am pleased to report that we found such artists among the applicants. The audiences in Hannover are in for a real treat!«
The competitors come from Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Korea, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland, the Ukraine, and the United States of America. Information on the competition is available on the internet at www.violin-competition.de, with links to the sites of the Foundation and its partners.