The calendar of Budapest music competitions features an international violin competition, held every five years and named after the world-renowned Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti. The special feature of this year’s competition is that Filharmónia has announced a competition for young players of both the violin and the viola, with a deadline for applications of 1 May 2012. Young violinists and violists from anywhere in the world may enter the competition, provided they were born after 1 January 1980. With a total prize fund of €18,000, or more than Ft 5 million, the competition takes place over three rounds, with 12 competitors advancing to the semi-final stage and six reaching the finals. Joseph Szigeti was a prominent representative of the world-famous Hungarian school of string music led by Jenő Hubay. His art inspired many great composers, and – both in a solo setting and with his musical collaborators – he performed masterpieces of the violin and chamber repertoires to an extraordinarily high standard, with unrivalled elegance and technical perfection. In the early 1970s, he personally discussed the programme and themes of the competition that bears his name with the violinist Dénes Kovács, then rector of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Szigeti’s ideas and intellectual spirit have been preserved in the competition programme ever since.

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