RIA Novosti, Russia
Sept 26 2004
MOSCOW OPENS STRING QUARTET CONTEST
MOSCOW, September 26 (RIA Novosti) – A 7th international string
quartet contest took start at the Moscow Conservatory today. To last
into September 30, Thursday, it bears the name of Dmitry
Shostakovich, one of the world’s foremost 20th century composers.
The contest has brought together fourteen quartets from Armenia,
Belgium, Finland, France, Italy and Kazakhstan. Performers from every
part of Russia represent the host country. These are student quartets
from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Novosibirsk and Petrozavodsk.
“The event is timed to the Dmitry Shostakovich birth centenary
galas,” Valentin Berlinsky, top-notch Russian performer and contest
jury president, said to a news conference last Thursday.
“The Moscow Conservatory has established its own award for this
particular contest,” added prominent violinist Vladimir Ivanov.
Conservatory orchestra department dean, he is on the jury. The best
quartet on which Moscow Conservatory students or alumni appear will
have its Smaller Hall for a concert-a generous award.
The winner quartet will also have a concert.
Renowned solo and quartet performers are on the jury-suffice it to
mention Marc Danel of Belgium, Italy’s Pavel Vernikov, Dominique de
Villancourt of France, and several Russians, among them Alexander
Galkovsky, Vladimir Ovcharek amd Vladimir Ivanov.
Grand Prix makes 720,000 rubles, roughly $24,000; the second prize
360,000 rubles, or $12,000; and third 280,000 rubles, $9,300.
Established seventeen years ago, the Shostakovich contest launched
many quartets into the global limelight. Of special brilliance among
them are Russia’s Eleonora, Dominant, Mozart and Romantic, The Lark
of the U.S., France’s Danael, the British Medea, and Italy’s Fone
Quartet.