Interviews

Ivan Boumans, winner of this year’s ICMA Composer Award is a very versatile musician. Besides composing, he is also a passionate teacher and conductor. His newest orchestral work, Organic Beat, was to be premiered at the ICMA Gala in Seville. After the cancellation of this event, the ICMA Board decided to cancel the 2021 Award and to postpone the one from 2020, so that Ivan Boumans’ work can be premiered at the next Gala with the Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra in 2021. Jury member Guy Engels (Radio 100,7, Luxembourg) made the following interview with the awardee. Read More →

Sixteen-year-old German cellist Philipp Schupelius is the winner of the Discovery Award of the International Classical Music Awards 2020. The musician, who grew up in Berlin, is currently studying with Wolfgang-Emmanuel Schmidt at the Julius Stern Institute of the Berlin University of the Arts, one of the largest and most renowned institutions for the promotion of young musicians in Germany. At the occasion of concerts at the VP Bank Classic Festival in Bad Ragaz (Switzerland), Isabel Roth, Martin Hoffmeister and Remy Franck made the following interview with Philipp Schupelius.

Philipp, what does it mean for you as a young musician to have won the Discovery Award of the ICMA?
It is a very great honour! I am happy because the award is so important and helpful for young musicians and because I know about the career of previous award winners. And I am especially looking forward to the gala in Seville, where I will play two movements from one of my favourite concertos, the Elgar Concerto, with the Seville Orchestra under John Axelrod. Read More →

French conductor Stéphane Denève is the recipient of an International Classical Music Award for his recording of Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher, an oratorio for actors, singers, choir and orchestra. For this recording, he is at the helm of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam for the orchestra’s label, RCO Live. Jean-Pierre Tribot from the ICMA Jury member magazine Crescendo made the following interview with the conductor. Read More →

The recording of French composer Pascal Dusapin’s opera Penthesilea won an ICMA award in the category Contemporary Music. Olivier Vrins, contributor of the ICMA Jury member Crescendo made the following interview with the composer.

Your opera Penthesilea has been unanimously acclaimed, notably at the last ICMA and the Belgian Caecilia Awards. It is considered by some to be the most accomplished and powerful opera you have composed so far. The music is so strong that it can perfectly do without the image. To what do you attribute the success of this work?
I’m obviously very happy with the success of this opera. By a happy combination of circumstances, the Penthesilea disc was released just as I was rehearsing my latest opera, Macbeth Underworld, which was staged here at La Monnaie a few months ago. I was immersed in Macbeth every day, and one evening I listened to Penthesilea in the apartment where I lived, in the centre of Brussels. I realised how different the two scores were! Read More →

For the first recording made with his ensemble Jupiter (created in 2018), Thomas Dunford has not stopped collecting praise and awards, among them the ICMA of 2020 in the Assorted Programs section. Eduardo Torrico from the Spanish magazine Scherzo made an interview with the musician, one of the most sought-after lutenists. The recording released by Alpha includes arias from operas and oratorios as well as concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Dunford is surrounded by two of his best friends and collaborators: mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and the harpsichordist Jean Rondeau. Read More →

The young cellist Erica Piccotti, born in Rome in 1999, is a talent with an already well-established career. Nicola Cattò, ICMA Jury member for the Italian magazine Musica and Secretary General met the Young Artist who won this year’s ICMA Young Artist of the Year Award.

How did you come to study the cello? Which are the main steps of your training?
It was a natural path, because at home I have ‘breathed’ music since I was little, my mother plays the piano, my brother the violin. After having ‘played’ with these two instruments, one day a cello came home. I was four and a half years old, and here I am! My first teacher was Francesco Storino, cellist of the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia in Rome, whom I was lucky enough to meet when I was part of the JuniOrchestra of the same Academy. Read More →

At the International Classical Music Awards 2020, Pianist Cédric Tiberghien has won an award in the chamber music category for an album with violinist Alina Ibragimova, his long-time musical partner. It is an amazing French album, focussing on the sonatas by César Franck and Louis Vierne. Jury member Pierre-Jean Tribot from the Belgian magazine Crescendo has made an interviews with this major pianist of our time. Read More →

The Jury of the International Classical Music Awards, ICMA, will announce the winners of the awards for 2020 next Tuesday, January 21. In addition to the nine Special Awards, 18 productions are awarded a prize in the Audio and Video categories. Stay tuned.