The beautiful chapel where the second round was held
The admitted in order of appearance:
Pagliari Matteo
Habu Makiko
Ommassini Francesco
Patel Sameer
Oi Takeshi
Harada Keitaro
Suh Jin
Mitsuhashi Keiko
Kakiuchi Yuki
Rous Benjamin
Dollman Luke
Martínez Daniel
Kubota Shoichi
Young Michael Alexander
Chang Michael
Meyer Jeff
Mroz Anna
Black Daniel
Brock Nathan
Ko Synthia
Some comments
Maestro Dollman at work with the Ensemble Zardonai and choir
Now I must say sorry for the sluggish pace of updating the results, but the truth is, that for the past three days I was without Internet connection. As you can see from the list above, I am not amongs the lucky ones, but many times in competitions it is just that, luck.
As usual, I stayed to see each and every candidate on the second round to see what is the general level and to try to understand the jury decisions. It seems this competition is quite like most of the others. For me it was unbelievable to see some total beginners conduct in the second round when so many already professionals had to step aside. I think one of the reasons for that is that the repertoire for the first round was not exactly what it should be. Many people complained about it, actually. One contestant who passed on to the second round even called the choice of Walton for the first round "offending"!
My colleagues Jin, Miguel and Anna waiting for the verdict
I would not go as far but I have my own theory about it: The repertoire in general is great, it shows how you work with the choir, how you accompany, how you manage the big symphonic forms etc. But this choice also shows how "hard working" you are. Do you have the determination to put aside hours and hours to study a totally uninteresting piece? In that case maybe the choices were right!
