The Japanese cellist receives €15,000 alongside concert engagements and career guidance
20-year-old Japanese cellist Yo Kitamura has won first prize at the 2024 George Enescu International Competition. He takes home the €15,000 top prize as well as concert engagements, career guidance, representation and recording opportunities. Kitamura also won the prize for the best performance of the imposed work, worth €2,000.
Italian cellist Ettore Pagano, 21, won the €10,000 second prize, as well as the €1,000 audience award and the Stefan and Valentin Gheorghiu Prize for the best performance of a George Enescu sonata, worth €3,000. US cellist Haddon Kay, 24, received the €5,000 third prize.
The cello finals took place at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest, Romania, on the evening of 10 September. The three finalists played concertos alongisde the Romanian National Radio Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Bloxham. Both Kay and Kitamura played Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor, while Pagano performed Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto no.1.
Kitamura studies at the Berlin University of the Arts with Jens Peter Maintz. In 2023 he received a soloist diploma from the Toho Gakuen School of Music, where he learned from Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi. He has taken masterclasses with cellists such as Steven Isserlis, Mischa Maisky, Philippe Muller and Wolfgang Boettcher.
Other competition success include first prize and a special prize at the 2023 International Johannes Brahms Competition and first prize and five special prizes at the 2023 Japan Music Competition. In 2022 he won second prize at the Khachaturian International Competition and in 2017 he received first prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians.
This 2024 Enescu Competition cello jury was presided by Arto Noras and also included Marin Cazacu, Enrico Dindo, Leonid Gorokhov, Charlotte Lee, Dan Prelipcean, Valentin Răduțiu, Meehae Ryo and Raimun Trenkler.
The violin division of the competition is currently underway and the second round will commence on 11 September.
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