Armenian baritone Grisha Martirosyan has won the 10th Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition held in Dublin from 25–30 August, the Journal of Music reports.
Martirosyan is a graduate of the Yerevan State Conservatoire in Armenia and also studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2019, he won first prize at the Gohar Gasparian Armenian National Singing Competition and is currently a member of the Mascarade Emerging Artists programme in Florence
The Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition was established in 1995 by Irish soprano and vocal coach Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Dunne, who passed away in 2021. The competition is held every three years in Dublin and has a prize fund of €30,000.
Each of the six finalists in this year’s competition performed three arias with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Laurent Wagner. For Martirosyan’s performance, he sang ‘Si può’ from Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, ‘Avant de quitter ces lieux’ from Gounod’s Faust, and ‘Vision fugitive’ from Massenet’s Hérodiade.
Aebh Kelly from Dublin was awarded second prize. A graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, she is also a member of the Mascarade Emerging Artists programme and was previously a member of Irish National Opera’s ABL Aviation Opera Studio. She recently performed as the Red Queen in Gerald Barry’s Alice’s Adventures Underground and in Amanda Feery’s opera A Thing I Cannot Name, as well as Jenn Kirby’s Dichotomies of Lockdown as part of INO’s 20 Shots of Opera. She made her debut with the NSO in June.