The 2024 Montreal International Musical Competition enters its final phase with the last six candidates. The men’s category is appropriate in this case, no candidate having qualified at the end of the semi-finals this weekend introducing, on Friday, the new chamber music event.
The three competitors particularly noticed by The duty during the first round — Elias Ackerley from the United Kingdom, Jaeden Izik-Dzurko from Canada and Jakub Kuszlik from Poland — remain in the running for the final on Wednesday, May 15 and Thursday, May 16 with the OSM at the Maison symphonique, conducted by Xian Zhang. Joining them in this final phase will be Anthony Ratinov and Derek Wang from the United States, as well as Italian Gabriele Strata.
Indices
Very interesting thing in this “Piano 2024” edition, the specific prizes, such as “Best interpretation of a sonata”, are revealed at the end of the event, during the competition, and not at the end of the competition, this which gives us some clues.
We know that the Canadian Jaeden Izik-Dzurko is already making a strong impression on the jury. He won the “Prize for the best interpretation of the required Canadian work”, Mzizaakok Miiniwaa Mzizaakoonsak (Horseflies and deer flies) by Barbara Assiginaak. He also won the title of “Best sonata in the semi-final”, the 1D Sonata by Rachmaninov. In short, it’s pretty clear that he won the semi-final! It should be noted in passing that this “Sonata Prize” explicitly restricts the spectrum to the semi-final, which explains that the 3e Sonata of Chopin by Kuszlik at 1er tour, the merits of which we have praised to you, was not taken into consideration.
That said, the winner of the “Chamber Music Prize” is the Italian Gabriele Strata, student of Benedetto Lupo and Ronan O’Hora. Benedetto Lupo, who had the good idea of sending his student Beatrice Rana to Montreal (at a time when, at 18, being ” bumper “, at the stage of file selection, by hordes of “professional candidates” was certainly a possibility but not a virtual certainty), thus placing his two protégés in the final.
The semi-final was therefore fatal to the Canadian Carter Johnson, the Chinese Antonio Chen Guang and the two candidates remaining in the running: the Japanese Arisa Onoda and the Italian Michelle Candotti. We will return on Wednesday to the final test, with a detailed analysis of the candidates’ profiles and the presentation of the programs for the two evenings.