Jury members

Born in Seoul, Korea, Seung-­Yeun Huh is one of her country's leading pianists. From the age of sixteen, she has lived in Europe where she first studied with Günter Ludwig and Karl-­Heinz Kämmerling, and later with Maria Curcio and Pavel Gililov. Seung-­Yeun Huh has won numerous first prizes in national and international piano competitions. After winning the Artists International Competition in New York, her debut in the Carnegie-­Weill Recital Hall was received enthusiastically and led to prompt invitations for return visits in the following years. Since then she has collaborated with conductors like David Zinman, Adam Fischer, John Curro, Peter Kuhn, Johannes Wildner, Heribert Beissel, Marcus Bosch, Pietari Inkinen and Wolfram Christ, and has performed with orchestras such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Austro-­Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic Orchetra, the Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonic State Orchestra of Halle, the New Philharmonic Orchestra Westfalia, the Kurpfälzische Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Zurich and the Sejong Soloists.

Communication with the audience, as well as talent for creating a special concert atmosphere have taken the young Latvian pianist Arta Arnicane to a large variety of performance venues across the world. Her quality of winning listeners’ full attention, combined with the warmth and intelligence of her programmes and interpretations, allows her to fascinate both small gatherings and large audiences in concert halls such as the Rudolfinum, Prague and the Zurich Tonhalle. Born into a family with a strong and longstanding musical tradition, she started playing the piano and composing at the age of four. Supported by numerous scholarship awards and eminent artists such as John Lill and Homero Francesch, Arta has studied in several countries and graduated with distinction from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (2004), the Latvian Academy of Music (2008), and Zurich University of the Arts (2010 and 2012).

Pavel Gililov was born in the Soviet Union and was discovered by Dimitry Kabalevsky, as a musical talent. In 1972, whilst still a student, he won the Moscow National Piano Competition and was awarded a prize at the 1975 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. From 1982 until his retirement, in 2013, he was piano professor at the Hochschule fur Musik in Cologne and is Professor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. The pianist holds several master classes throughout Europe and the Far East and is Chairman of the Jury and Artistic Director at the International Telekom Beethoven Competition, Bonn. He is considered one of the most influential piano experts in the world and is responsible for many pianistic careers of the last decades.

Polish-born pianist, Tomasz Herbut, is an internationally acclaimed soloist and chamber musician. His performances have taken him to Japan, Korea, South America and across Europe. Tomasz has performed at prestigious international festivals such as “The Flandern Festival“, “The Menuhin Festival Gstaad“, “The Vratislava Cantans Festival“ and “The Chopin Festival Paris“. A sought-after chamber musician, Tomasz has appeared in concert with leading ensembles including the “Varsovia String Quartet“, “Camerata String Quartet“, “Silesian String Quartet“, “Sine Nomine Quartet“ and soloists, including Patrick Demenga and Paul Meyer, among others. He is also a recognized authority on song interpretation, collaborating with singers such as Jadwiga Rappé, Urszula Kryger, Joseph Calleja and Rudolf Rosen. He has made numerous recordings for both television and radio, which have been broadcast across Europe. He is a prizewinner of the prestigious Polish Phonographic Music Prize, the “Grand Prix du Disque FRYDERYK“. In Switzerland - where he lives since 35 years - Tomasz performs in renowned concert halls such as the “Victoria Hall Geneva“, “Tonhalle Zurich“ and “Casino Berne“ among others.