The jury
The jury of the competition is made up of 5 well-known conductors. Here the names and CVs.
Helene Stureborg [Sweden]
Helene Stureborg worked between 1990 and 2022 as a choral conductor and pedagogue at the Stockholms Musikgymnasium/Kungsholmens gymnasium. The school is the leading choir school for students 16-19 in Sweden. She was also the conductor of the Stockholms Musikgymnasium Chamber (SMK) choir since 2002. The choir has won several prices at competitions abroad and is highly respected. They were invited as one of the 24 invited choirs at WSCM2020 in Auckland. After receiving a Master in Fine Arts in Church music and a Postgraduate Diploma In Choral Conducting at the Royal University of Music, she started as a church musician in a Stockholm parish and became the conductor of Kongl Teknologkören at the Royal Institute of Technology. The choir kept a high level and won several competitions. In 2011 she started her own ensemble Helene Stureborgs chamber choir (HSK) which has won Grand Prix in both Cork choral competition in Ireland and in the Grieg choral competition in Norway. For many years Helene Stureborg was also a teacher in choral conducting at the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm and also at varying courses in Sweden and abroad. She was a member of the Artistic Council of Statens Musikverk in 2014-2016 and in 2017 she received the Choir conductor of the year prize in Sweden and was one of two conductors to lead the World Youth Choir 2018 during their summer session in Inner Mongolia and China. In January 2023 she began a new position as Artistic planning manager of the Swedish Radio Choir, but will remain as conductor of HSK and will also continue with her freelance work internationally. In 2023 she received the Johannes Norrby medal of honor for contributing to the development and promotion of Swedish choral singing. In August 2023 HS launched the new Storkyrkans Kammarkör, a choir for young talented singers age 17-26, in the Stockholm Cathedral. Helene Stureborg has been a member of the board of the Swedish Choral director´s association and is now a founding member and also in the Steering Committee of the World Choral Conducting Network.
Māris Sirmais [Latvia]
Māris Sirmais is one of Latvia’s most significant conductors, a charismatic leader and a driving force in Latvian choral music. Under his more than 20 years of leadership, the State Choir Latvija has become one of Europe’s most well-known choirs. Sirmais has conducted concerts at the Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg; Koerner Hall, Toronto; Lincoln Center, New York; the Tonhalle, Zürich; the Vaslav Nijinsky Auditorium, Nantes; Stavanger Concert Hall; the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival; the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival; the Lockenhaus Festival; and others. He has collaborated closely with violinist G. Kremer, conductor M. Jansons, organist I. Apkalna, composers G. Kancheli and R. Shchedrin, and many other world-class musicians and composers from around the world. Sirmais has conducted concerts with the Berlin Radio Choir, the MDR Leipzig Radio Choir, the Netherlands Chamber Choir and Netherlands Children’s Choir, Singapore’s ONE Chamber Choir, Šiauliai’s Polifonija, and other choirs worldwide. Sirmais performs regularly with almost all of Latvia’s professional orchestras, and has conducted ensembles such as Kremerata Baltica, Umeå Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Strings and others. Sirmais was also the creator of the most vibrant symbols of Latvian choral culture, Youth Choir Kamēr…, for which he was head conductor from its founding in 1990 to 2012.
He is also an active participant in the Song Festival amateur choir movement. Since 1998, he has been a Song Festival Chief Conductor, and he was the Artistic Director for the 2008 Song Festival Gala Concert. Sirmais teaches choral conducting at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music and sits on the juries of several international choral and choral conducting competitions. He also gives popular masterclasses and has conducted such pieces as Poulenc’s Gloria and Stabat Mater, Pärt’s Credo and Te Deum, Kancheli’s Styx, Honneger’s A Christmas Cantata and Joan of Arc at the Stake, Tavener’s Svyati, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, John Adams’ Harmonium, Taneyev’s John of Damascus, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and many others. Sirmais has close, years-long professional relationships with composers Pēteris Vasks, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Rihards Dubra, Raimonds Tiguls and Raimonds Pauls. Sirmais is a Bearer of the Order of the Three Stars, an honorary member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, and the recipient of many titles and awards for his achievements in culture and for promoting the name of Latvia overseas.
©photocredits: Juris Zigelis
Basilio Astulez [Spain, Basque Country]
Born in 1975, he graduated in fine arts from the University of the Basque Country and studied music in Vitoria-Gasteiz. He trained as a conductor at the Herria Euskal Choral Federation, attending courses and seminars with J. Duyick and J. Busto. Between 1996 and 2004 he conducted, among others, the Alaitz Abesbatza choir in Vitoria-Gasteiz with which he won numerous national and international prizes, in particular the Grand National Prize for Choral Singing in 2000. In 1999 he founded Vocalia Taldea, a women's chamber group that has won major international prizes (Toulouse, Torrevieja, Maasmechelen, Arezzo, Tours, Cork). He teaches choral singing at the Leioa Municipal Conservatory where he founded the Leioa Kantika Korala youth choir in 2000 and the SJB mixed youth choir in 2008. This newly founded school has over 250 singers aged between 9 and 25 and has already won numerous Spanish and European prizes (Toulouse, Arezzo, Gorizia, Neerpelt, Torrevieja and others). With his choirs, Basilio has recorded 12 records and toured Europe, Asia and America and has worked with important soloists, orchestras, conductors and ensembles, receiving the special prize as best conductor at the 49th Seghizzi International Competition in Gorizia (2008) and at the 38th Florilège Vocal de Tours (2009). In 2014, he performed with the Leioa Kantika Korala at the 10th World Symposium on Choral Music in Seoul (South Korea). He currently teaches choral conducting for educational institutions, universities and choral federations in Spain and is often called upon to serve on the jury of many competitions and to hold choral courses and seminars around the world. Since 2018, he has been teaching choral conducting at the Conservatorio Superior Musikene in the Basque Country and conducts the EHGA, the Basque Youth Choir, recently awarded three first prizes at the International Choral Competition in Toulouse.
vocaliataldea.com
Piero Monti [Italy]
Born in Faenza, Piero Monti graduated in choral music and choir conducting from the L. Cherubini Conservatory in Florence with top marks in 1979. In the same year he won a competition at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna to teach as assistant conductor and in 1988 he took over the direction of the choir, which he held for 15 years. He worked with conductors such as L. Chailly, G. Solti, C. Abbado, M.W. Chung, V.A. Gergiev, R. Muti, C. Thielemann, V. Jurowskij, G. Sinopoli and D. Gatti. In 2003 he was called to the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, where he also took part in the productions for the inauguration of the reconstructed theatre directed by R. Muti and L. Maazel, collaborating with conductors such as L. Viotti, N. Marriner and G. Prêtre. From December 2004 to December 2012, he was conductor of the Choir of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, where he collaborated with music director Z. Mehta and with other great musicians such as S. Ozawa, S. Bychkov, C. Hogwood, L. Maazel, R. Muti and C. Abbado. In 2008, he was invited by V. Jurowskij to merge the two London Philharmonia Chorus and London Philharmonic Choir, with a total of 240 singers, to perform G. Verdi's Requiem with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2013 in Beijing he prepared the Choir of the new NCPA Opera House for a production of J. Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann and in Paris the Radio France Choir for a Requiem by G. Verdi conducted by D. Gatti. In 2014, he came back to the French capital to conduct G. Rossini's Petite Messe solennelle in the national broadcaster's new Auditorium, and prepared the Dresden Semperoper Chorus for a production of G. Puccini's Turandot. From 2013 to 2019 he led the Choir of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. From September 2019 he was the main conductor of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Chorus, a post he left in June 2023. In recent years he has worked with conductors such as M.W. Chung, T. Pinnock, J.E. Gardiner, F. Biondi and of course with music director A. Pappano with whom he has also register two albums: Messa di Gloria by G. Rossini, which won the ICMA (International classic music awards) choral music category prize in 2023, and Turandot by G. Puccini. He has led his choirs on many tours: Japan, Brazil, Spain, Oman, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Jerusalem, Hamburg, up to the last one at the Philharmonie in Berlin, with unanimous appreciation of the ensembles he has trained.
Roberta Paraninfo [Italy]
Roberta Paraninfo is a pianist, conductor and teacher. She has founded and conducted several choral ensembles since 1994. The first 'creature', born in 1995, was the Genova Vocal Ensemble. Around this first choral nucleus, in 2005 she founded and currently conducts the Accademia Vocale of Genova, a choral and musical training course: within this structure, the generations of singers go through the different stages of choral growth starting from childhood (Mini, Piccoli and Giovani Cantori), until, after completing their vocal moulting, the assumption of their personal identity, starting with the choice of a shared name and 'direction', and proceed choral life within the Accademia. The current mixed choir of the Genoa Vocal Academy is the Sibi Consoni choir. With these ensembles, she has been invited to prestigious international festivals (Italy, France, Switzerland, Slovenia) and won several prizes in national and international competitions. In addition to these, she has conducted the mixed choir JanuaVox, the women's choir Good News!, the Steffani Conservatory Choir and the Steffani Chamber Choir of the Conservatory of Castelfranco Veneto (Treviso). She believes that immersion in music from an early age is fundamental, and for many years she has personally overseen music education and choral development projects both for primary school classes in Genoa and training courses for teachers and choral conductors in various regions of Italy. Together with G. Graden, she conducted the Italian National Youth Choir, a Feniarco project, for the two-year period 2015-2016. She taught Choral Practice at the Conservatory of Castelfranco Veneto from 2014 to 2017. She teaches Piano Accompaniment at the Conservatorio N. Paganini in Genoa.
