Over the weekend of November 1-3, the halls of NYU Prague’s Richter Palace were flooded with music performed by 65 violists from 25 countries who were competing in the inaugural Oskar Nedbal International Viola Competition for musicians under 30. The top prize? A coveted inter alia, a virtuoso bow made by master craftsman Luboš Odlas whose bows are used by the world’s top musicians.
The competition was founded by Kristina Fialová, one of Europe’s leading young violists and a teacher at NYU Prague. It was named after the Czech composer Oskar Nedbal, who was (along with Josef Suk and Vítězslav Novák) one of the most successful students of Antonín Dvořak. Nedbal founded the Czech Quartet with Suk and played with him for fourteen years; later he became the conductor of the Czech Philharmonic from 1896-1906. He is known for his compositions for ballet and operettas.
The winner was MinGwan Kim (South Korea) who studied at Universitat der Kunst in Berlin and currently plays for the Philharmonic Orchestra in Dortmund, Germany. At the awards ceremony, Kim performed a Vieuxtemps sonata along with second prize winner Yuri Yoon (South Korea) who performed a Bach suite and and third prize winner Evgeny Shchegolev (Russia), who performed a Nedbal composition. The prize for the best Czech participant went to Daniel Macho, a student at the Prague Music Faculty (HAMU).
“The skill of the competitors was tremendous and it was difficult to choose only one winner,” Fialová said. She was on the jury with six other internationally renowned violists: Stephanie Baer (USA), who is the head of the music performance program at Steinhardt at NYU, Tim Frederiksen (Denmark), Jan Pěruška (Czech Republic), Jensen Horn – Sin Lam (Austria) a Sheila Browne (USA/China).
There was a huge amount of interest in the contest – the organizers had to turn down applications six weeks prior to the initially projected deadline, as there were no more places available in the competition’s first round. ‘We hoped that our new competition would elicit a positive response, yet this extraordinary – the wave of interest exceeded all expectations,’ said Fialová. “It shows that we have succeeded in launching a new, successful project for young violists.”
The competition was supported by Gewa Strings, Wittner, the Czech Musical Instruments, the Prague Municipal Government, the ‘Life of the Artist’ Foundation, and the Czech Music Fund.