Jury

Italian conductor Gianluca Marcianò has been increasingly in demand since his operatic debut with Croatian National Opera in 2007. Praised in the Sunday Times for his “unfailingly theatrical and idiomatic conducting”, Marcianò has strong ties with the opera houses in Oviedo, Minsk, Tbilisi and Yerevan, and within the UK, English National Opera, Grange Park Opera, Longborough Opera and the English Chamber Orchestra.

Asya Fateyeva was born in Kerch on the Crimean peninsula in 1990. She remembers well how she could taste the salty air on her tongue on her way to music school there. Her father, a professional footballer, and mother supported her love of music from an early age. Fateyeva was six when she began taking piano lessons. “My first piano teacher, Valentina Nikishina, sowed the seeds of my love of the arts and taught me the intensity and depth of the Russian school,” Asya Fateyeva recalls. Making music “with a Russian soul” is what still characterises this successful saxophonist, even though the French school now pervades her playing.

A musician of international fame, Philippe Geiss gives concerts and master classes all over the world. Exceling in very diverse disciplines, he has mastered a repertoire that extends from classical to improvised music. He performs mainly with the pianist Marija Aupy with whom he forms Duo Ostinato and also performs with Jean-François Zygel, Jerry Bergonzi and several ensembles, windband and symphonic orchestras. He plays the whole range of saxophones from sopranino to bass saxophone. He has been awarded prizes for Best Music for Drama at the Festival d’Avignon and the Académie du disque français, as well as the Music Prize of the Académie Rhénane.

Vitaly Katkov was born on January 22, 1969, in Moscow. His passion for music began during the time at the music school at the Moscow State Conservatory named after PI Tchaikovsky. Katkov's higher education, although it was not associated with music, determined the further vector of his life. The fact is that Vitaly Katkov studied at the Faculty of Management at the International University in Moscow.

This clarinet player from France, Michel Letiek, is currently one of the most outstanding musicians in the world of classical music. He devotes his time not only to perform at concerts and festivals, but he also teaches at the Nice Conservatoire and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. Throughout his career, Michel has both soloed and played parts in collectives of chamber musicians alongside the most prominent performers from around the world, such as L. Kovakos, F. Helmerson, A. Noras, G. Sharon, B. Pasquier, H. Shaham, J. Bashmet, G. Cosse, P. Gallois, G. Hoffmann, J. Menuhin, J. F. Heisser, P. Chaba, J.-C. Pennetier, W. Mendelssohn, P. Amoyal, J. J. Cantorov, J. Gandelsmann, I. Golan, and M. Martin. As for the groups, he worked in Vienna at the Artis Quartet, Czech Quartets of Talich and Prazak, as well as French, American, Canadian, Chinese, British quartets.

Ron Selka was appointed principal clarinetist of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 2001. He is a prizewinner in both the Coleman and Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions in the USA (1994). He has collaborated with artists such as Gil Shaham, Maxim Vengerov, Julian Rachlin and Mischa Maisky, Mira Zakai, Aviram Reichert and the Carmel quartet. His festival appearances include the Israel Festival, Kfar Blum and Pro Festival (Germany).

Hong Kong-born Kenneth Tse is widely recognized as one of the world's leading classical saxophonists. He burst onto the international music scene in 1996 after winning the New York International Artists Competitions and The Alex Award from the National Alliance for Excellence. The New York Times hailed him as a “young virtuoso.” Both awards led to his debut performances at New York's prestigious Carnegie Hall. Since then he has performed as a soloist on five continents. He has also been invited as a guest clinician at major music conferences hosted by the California Band Directors’ Association, the Iowa Bandmasters Association and The Midwest Clinic International Band, Orchestra and Music Conference.