Competitors Announced for Indianapolis International Violin Competition – Including 8 VC ‘Young Artists’

The 40 competitors for the 2014 9th International Violin Competition of Indianapolis have today been announced - including VC ‘Young Artists’ Nikki Chooi, Yoo Jin Jang, Suyeon Kang, Dami Kim, Tessa Lark, Richard Lin, Yu-Chien Benny Tseng and Stephen Waarts.

This year's candidates are:

Stella Chen (21, United States), Daniel Cho (21, United States), Jinjoo Cho (26, Korea), Jung Min Choi (20, Korea), Nikki Chooi (25, Canada), Luosha Fang (25, China), Kristi Gjezi (24, France), Fangyue He (27, China), Ui-Youn Hong (27, Korea), Petteri Iivonen (27, Finland), Yoo Jin Jang (23, Korea), Tianyun Jia (24, China), Wonyoung Jung (28, Korea), Suyeon Kang (25, Australia), Nadir Khashimov (24, United States), Bomsori Kim (24, Korea), Dami Kim (25, Korea), Stephen Kim (18, United States), Mariya Krasnyuk (25, Ukraine), Tessa Lark (25, United States), Ji Yoon Lee (22, Korea), Shannon Lee (22, United States), Youjin Lee (19, Korea), Christine Lim (19, Korea /United States), Ji Young Lim (19, Korea), Richard Lin (23, Taiwan/United States), Jennifer Liu (22, United States), Vladyslava Luchenko (26, Ukraine), Dominika Przech (28, Poland), Anna Savkina (20, Russia), Andrea Segar (28, United States), Ji-Won Song (21, Korea), Chiharu Taki (27, Japan), Yu-Chien Benny Tseng (20, Taiwan), Ayana Tsuji (16, Japan), Danbi Um (24, Korea), Stephen Waarts (18, United States/Holland), Andi Zhang (22, China), Nancy Zhou (21, United States) and Areta Zhulla (28, Greece).

The quadrennial event will be held from the 5th to the 21st of September, in Indianapolis, USA – with the 1st prize winner to receive USD $30,000, a number of international concert engagements, including a Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium recital debut, 4 years of career and concert management - and the 4 year loan of the 1683 ‘ex-Gingold’ Stradivarius.

The 40 candidates were selected from 179 DVD applications – selected by a screening panel comprising Boston Symphony Concertmaster Malcolm Lowe, Hong Kong Academy faculty member Ivan Chan - and competition Jury President Jaime Laredo.

For this year’s competition 31 women and 9 men have been selected, representing 13 countries - with the youngest competitor aged just 16.

Competition tickets for all rounds available now at: http://bit.ly/SJ9q3c - priced from just USD $15.

Previous prize winners include: VC ‘Young Artists’ Sergey Khachatryan, Augustin Hadelich, Bella Hristova, Clara-Jumi Kang, Soyoung Yoon, Benjamin Beilman and Andrey Baranov.

The Violin Channel will be providing on-the-ground rolling coverage of all 16 days - live from Indianapolis; you won’t miss a beat!

Pictured: VC 'Young Artists' Nikki Chooi, Richard Lin, Yoo Jin Jang & Stephen Waarts