59th Competition

Born in Copenhagen, Michael Schønwandt studied piano, theory and composition before turning to conducting. He then continued his studies in London at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1979, he was appointed permanent conductor of the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen.

From 2015 to 2023, Michael Schønwandt was Principal Conductor of the Orchestre national de Montpellier. In 2021, he was appointed Music Director of the Orchestre Français des Jeunes. In 2022, he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre National de Belgique.

Michael Schønwandt has also held the posts of Music Director of the Royal Copenhagen Opera, the Royal Danish Orchestra and the Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester (1992-1998); Principal Guest Conductor of La Monnaie in Brussels (1984-1987), the Danish National Radio Orchestra and the Beethovenhalle Orchestra in Bonn; Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Orchestra of Flanders and the Staatstheater Stuttgart.

In addition to his close collaboration with the Royal Copenhagen Opera, he has conducted numerous productions at Covent Garden in London, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Vienna Opera, the Paris Opera, as well as in Nice, Stuttgart, Cologne, Madrid and Tel Aviv.
Michael Schønwandt has devoted much of his career to the symphonic repertoire. He conducts a large number of orchestras: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse romande, Orchestre National de France, Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestras of Bordeaux, Lyon, Nice, Toulouse, Monte-Carlo as well as the Orchestras of Bamberg, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Munich Bavarian Radio, the Orchestra Sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi di Milano, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, La Monnaie de Bruxelles, Budapest, Stockholm, Oslo, Rome, Graz and Zurich.

He records regularly with the Royal Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Recent recordings include Richard Strauss's Salome, the complete symphonies of Niels Gade and Weyse, the complete symphonies and concertos of Carl Nielsen, as well as the world premiere of Henze's Violin Concerto No. 3 and Poul Ruder's opera The Handmaid's Tale. He has also recorded Pelléas et Mélisande by Schoenberg and Sibelius with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, as well as Le Ring and Maskarade with the Royal Copenhagen Opera.

© Marc Ginot

Régis Campo is a composer who divides his musical creation between vocal, concert, opera and film music. He studied at the Conservatoire de Marseille, then at the Conservatoire National de Région de Paris, before joining the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where he studied with Gérard Grisey. In 1995, he was awarded First Prize in composition at the CNSMD de Paris.

From 1992 onwards, he met a number of personalities whom he regarded as mentors, including Henri Dutilleux, Vladimir Cosma and Edison Denisov, who considered him “one of the most talented of his generation”. From 1999 to 2001, he was a resident at the Villa Médicis in Rome. His repertoire – comprising over three hundred works – covers a wide range of instrumental and vocal formations.

His style, often described as playful and colorful, emphasizes melodic invention, humor, joy and vitality of tempo. Many artists have performed his music, including Felicity Lott, Kent Nagano, Romain Leleu, Fazıl Say, Jay Gottlieb, Zoltán Kocsis, Carolina Eyck, Bertrand Chamayou, Pieter Wispelwey, Laurent Korcia, Théo Ould and numerous orchestras and ensembles such as the Ensemble intercontemporain, the London Sinfonietta, Nieuw Ensemble Amsterdam, Ensemble Modern Frankfurt, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Orchestre symphonique de Berkeley, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio-France, Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, Orchestre National de France, RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Quatuors Diotima, Tana, Parisii...

His work has won numerous awards: three prizes in the Dutilleux competition (1996), the Hervé Dujardin Prize from Sacem and the Pierre Cardin Prize from the Institut de France (1999), the Georges Bizet Prize from the Institut de France and the Sacem Prize for young composers (2005), the Simone and Cino del Duca Foundation Prize (2014), the Swiss Life 4-hands Prize (2010), and the Grand Prix de la musique classique contemporaine (career) – Grand prix Sacem 2020. He was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2017, in the Musical Composition section, to the seventh chair created in 1967 and occupied by Olivier Messiaen.

Régis Campo is composer in residence at the Besançon International Music Festival for two years, 2024/2026.

© Yves petit

Also jury member for the selection rounds
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South Korean violinist Jaewon Kim is concertmaster of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. She worked with the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich as second solo violin from the age of 24 under conductor Paavo Järvi until 2021. She won the competition for second concertmaster of the Orchestre de Paris in 2022, where she worked as second concertmaster and guest supersoloist. She has also been a regular guest super-soloist with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.

She studied with NamYun Kim at the Seoul National University of the Arts and then at the Conservatoire National Supérieure de Musique de Paris with Svetlin Roussev and Roland Daugareil.

She has won numerous prizes and special awards, including Lipizer in Italy, Brahms in Austria, Schoenfeld in Hong Kong, Sofia Young Virtuoso in Bulgaria and Kloster Schöntal in Germany.

She was a laureate of the Fondation de la Banque Populaire in France from 2017 to 2019 and joined the orchestral academy of the Paris Opera and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France during her studies in Paris.

She has given numerous recitals, notably in Italy, France, Switzerland and Korea. She has been invited as a guest artist and has performed at Radio France and several festivals. As a soloist, Jaewon Kim has performed with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Busan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Busan Sinfonietta, the Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chuncheon Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ulsan Philharmonic Orchestra, the KNUA Orchestra, the China Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Bomberg Philharmonic Orchestra in Spain.

She is supersoloist with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse since 2023.

© Shin-joong Kim

Catherine Larsen-Maguire has become a sought-after conductor, supremely versatile, equally at home in the traditional orchestral repertoire and with the music of today.

Catherine Larsen-Maguire has in recent years conducted orchestras including the London Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, Orquesta de Extremadura, Slovenian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Mecklenburgisches Staatskapelle and Göttinger Symphonieorchester. A musician’s musician, she has successfully worked with a diverse array of soloists in recent seasons, including Carolin Widmann, Edgar Moreau, Adam Walker, Sean Shibe, Jean Rondeau, Lucas and Arthur Jussen, Guy Johnston and Sarah Wegener.

Catherine Larsen-Maguire also works closely with living composers and has given several world and national premieres of works of composers including Alexander Goehr, Cathy Milliken, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Gordon Kampe, James MacMillan and Joey Roukens.

With a passion for mentoring the next generation of musicians, Catherine Larsen-Maguire places great emphasis on working with young people, both as conductor and educator; she is currently Music Director of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland.

Born in Manchester and now based in Berlin, Catherine Larsen-Maguire read music at Cambridge University, followed by studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Karajan Academy in Berlin. She turned her focus exclusively to conducting in 2012 following a successful career as a bassoonist, which included 10 years as principal at the Komische Oper Berlin.

© David Beecroft

A former student of Leif Segerstam and Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy, Eva Ollikainen won the Jorma Panula Conducting Competition at the age of 21.

Highlights from recent seasons include appearances with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Belgique, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra as well as with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, SWR Symphonieorchester and Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the opera house, Ollikainen has conducted at the Semperoper Dresden, Royal Danish Opera, Gothenburg Opera, Kungliga Operan Stockholm and the Finnish National Opera.

The 2024/25 season sees Ollikainen make major debuts including Orchestre National de France, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Auditorium-Orchestre National de Lyon. Elsewhere, she makes her Musikverein debut with the Wiener Symphoniker and returns to Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Helsinki Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony and Baltimore Symphony, and conducts an August Everding production of The Magic Flute at the Staatsoper Berlin.

Curious about contemporary music, Eva Ollikainen has performed a wide range of repertoire with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and is well known for championing the music of Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, with whom Ollikainen has a close artistic partnership. In 2023, Ollikainen and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra released Anna Thorvaldsdottir ARCHORA / AIŌN on Sono Luminus to critical acclaim.

© Nikolaj Lund

Also jury member for the selection rounds
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Super soloist at the Paris Opera, Professor at the Paris Conservatoire, considered to be one of Europe's finest clarinettists, he has won several international competitions in various disciplines (Tokyo, Vienna, Antwerp, Colmar and Lugano). He has performed under the baton of Bernstein, Ozawa, Muti, Gergiev, Salonen, Boulez, Jordan, Dohnanyi, Barenboim, Dudamel and Nelsons, among others, and has been invited by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

Winner of the Bruno Walter Prize at the Lugano International Conducting Competition in 2001, he is assistant to Philippe Jordan in Vienna and to Kent Nagano, and resident conductor of the Orchestre National de Lyon (2008/2010).

He has been artistic director of the Orchestre Victor Hugo since 2010, an orchestra that is now recognised and, on the rise, with whom he has recorded several award-winning albums (two Chocs Classica, Choc Jazz, Diamant d'Opéra Magazine, etc.), a film with soprano Renée Fleming, and several CD books for children.

He is in demand on the major international stages: Opéra national de Paris (for which he has conducted over 70 shows and made two musical films for the cinema), Munich, Tokyo, Vienna, Madrid, Montreal, Lausanne, Luxembourg, Berne, Brussels, Mexico City, Salerno, Nagoya, Bolshoi Moscow... He is also a guest of the main French orchestras, national operas and festivals.

He has collaborated with Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Ludovic Tézier, Sandrine Piau, Piotr Beczala, Isabelle Faust, Sergei Nakariakov, Anne Queffélec, Nemanja Radulovic, François Leleux... He is a member of the jury of international competitions alongside Leonard Slatkin, Jorma Panula, Marin Alsop, and Dennis Russel-Davies.

He has composed musical tales and two mini-operas for children: his works have been performed by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Bavarian Radio in Munich, Dessau Opera, Capitole de Toulouse, Opéra de Rouen, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Orchestre National de Metz, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, etc.

Jean-François Verdier is an Officier des Arts et Lettres.

© Yves Petit

Wright began his career by running the European office of the Shawconcerts agency, where he worked for – amongst others – Vladimir Horowitz, Jacqueline du Pré, Garrick Ohlsson, Maureen Forrester, and Frederica von Stade. He later joined Harold Holt, where he also managed a group of artists, such as Mariss Jansons, Semyon Bychkov, Sir Neville Marriner, Yuri Temirkanov, and Seiji Ozawa.

In 1991 he creates and set up IMG Artists Europe. As well as managing artists and touring orchestras, Stephen Wright was also responsible for the opening of further IMG Artists offices in Paris and Asia. IMG Artists subsequently became a leading classical concert agency in Europe. Stephen Wright also established a new international audiovisual arm, he designs and produces television documentaries on the great conductors and singers of the 20th century. These productions were shown worldwide on television and released on DVD. He has also set up a range of audio projects, particularly with the BBC.

Since 2005, Stephen Wright has pursued a new career as a freelance Art consultant, working for UBS, the Peter Moores Foundation, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Medici Arts, and BBC Music & Arts Television. He also founded and launched the ICA Classics label, which continues to produce a wide range of historic audio and audiovisual archive material.

Stephen Wright is currently Artistic Consultant to the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and to the Strasbourg Philharmonic.

© DR