Winners Announced at France's 2021 Mirecourt Violin Competition

Qingzhu Weng from China has been awarded first prize at the 2021 Mirecourt International Violin Competition, in Mirecourt, France

A student of Krzysztof Wegrzyn at the Hochschule for Music, Theater and Media, Hannover, Qingzhu is a former top prize winner at the Tibor Junior International Violin Competition. He will be awarded €5000.

Gawon Kim from South Korea and Victoria Wong from Australia were awarded second and third prizes. The fourth prize was awarded to Yumiko Yumiba from Japan.

For the final round, each of the four finalists performed either the Brahms, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns 3rd, Sibelius, or Tchaikovsky Violin Concerti with the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Lorraine.

"Our aim every second year is to gather musicians, violin and bow makers and music lovers, to discover and promote talented young artists and instrument makers and to celebrate the notable history of French music, particularly that written in our great Lorraine region, from the 19th, 20th and now 21st Centuries," Artistic Director Marianne Piketty said.

The 2021 jury comprised Martin Beaver, Jan Repko, Dong-Suk Kang, Marianne Piketty, Marco Rizzi, Irina Muresanu, and VC Artist Sergey Malov.