All five Americans are eliminated in the Malko Competition
mainThe contestants were whittled down from 24 to 12 today and none of the five Americans made the cut. A Hong Kong/UK candidate and a Canadian are all that remain from the English-speaking world.
The last 12 are:
Andrey Rubtsov (Russia)
Anna Rakitina (Russia)
David Niemann (Germany)
Earl Lee (Canada)
Elim Chan (HK/UK, winner of the 2014 Donatella Flick)
Giedre Slekyte (Lithuania)
Jesko Sirvend (Germany)
Jesus Eduardo Uzcategui (Venezuela)
Risto Joost (Estonia)
Seokwon Hong (S. Korea)
Stilian Kirov (Bulgaria, ex-asst. Seattle Symphony)
Tung-Chieh Chuang (Taiwan)
You can watch the jury announcement here.
Funny that so many of the second round contestants trained in the USA……….
Conductor competitions. Don’t sweat about it. Not much sense in having these, even less than for instrumental competitions. Conductor competitions are usually a waste of time, a competition of first impressions and Jury member agendas, not much else. But interesting to watch nevertheless.
The only real conducting competition is in the field, in the pit, on the stage over the years.
Also why are there so many administrators in the jury of this competition?
Is it actually a marketability contest?