The concert tour of winners of 16th International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poznań has drawn to a close.
For the first time in the history of the Competition, three finalists embarked on a world tour, which was organised by Henryk Wieniawski Musical Society in Poznań in collaboration with SONORA Music Agency.
“The Laureate Tour is a splendid start to the Competition winners’ international careers. I am glad we have been able to assist them in gaining new concert experience, and providing a lot of musical memories to audiences worldwide. It is with genuine interest that we are going to follow their musical development. I hope the Laureate Tour will become a permanent prize-pool feature of the International Violin Competition," says general manager of the Wieniawski Society, Karolina Kaźmierczak.
The tour, which featured three winners – Hina Maeda of Japan, Meruert Karmenova of Kazakhstan, and Qingzhu Weng of China – consisted in eighty concerts in twenty-two countries on five continents.
“I am immensely grateful to all the people who made it possible for me to get to know artists and audiences around the world. In the last year, I realised on numerous occasions that people of different cultures, who speak different languages, can communicate in the language of music without any obstacles. I would love to experience it countless times in the future,” says Hina Maeda.
The first-prize winner of the 16th edition of the Competition played sixty concerts in such venues, as the Salle Gaveau in Paris, Seoul Arts Center, National Concert Hall Taipei, Grand Théâtre Bordeaux, Opéra national de Lorraine, Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, Cankarjev Dom in Ljubljana, Liszt Academy in Budapest, or Lisinski Hall in Zagreb. She was met with audiences’ great enthusiasm (and long lines to get her autograph) in Panama, Columbia or The Philippines. Radio broadcasts in Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Lithuania and Latvia considerably increased the extent of her concerts. The Laureate Tour was also an opportunity for Hina Maeda to collaborate for the first time with such world-renowned conductors, as Marta Gardolińska, Thomas Sanderling, Marc Korovitch or Joseph Swensen.
It was already in the early stages of the tour that the Japanese violinist joined the Lies Askonas Fellowship talent development programme operated by the British Askonas Holt agency, while Dayoon You, holder of the Competition’s Honorary Mention, joined the Korean agency The Bridge.
”When we started our collaboration with the Wieniawski Society and Competition, little did we expect that we would jointly be able to develop the Competition Laureate Tour, which was unprecedented both in terms of its size and its reach. Having accompanied the players in a number of their concert travels, on several occasions our local partners expressed their admiration for the range of the tour that was coordinated by our agency. Collaboration with the competition winners has also brought genuine affection for the young musicians with whom we remain in contact, and whose development we are going to further support,” say Stanisław Suchora and Mikołaj Bylka-Kanecki of SONORA Music.
Owing to involvement and participation of representatives of Polish and Japanese Embassies, as well as of Polish Institutes in the concerts, the events were also opportunities to advance international cultural cooperation.
We would like to thank the National Institute of Music and Dance,
the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
and the City of Poznań for cooperation in organizing and co-financing the concerts.
We would also like to thank the tour manager - SONORA Music and partners:
AMATI Inc. (Japan),
The Bridge Company (Korea),
New Aspect (Taiwan),
MPC Music Management (Colombia),
Fundação Maria Luisa e Oscar Americano (Brazil),
Fondazione Gioventù Musicale d’Italia (Italy)
and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.
We would like to express our special gratitude to all the people whose commitment and help directly contributed to the 16th Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition and the Laureates' Concert Tour success, in particular pianists, orchestras, conductors, producers, sound engineers, journalists, photographers, promotional staff and volunteers.
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Hina Maeda’s concert with Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Modestas Barkauskas in Vilnius (in the photo below) will be rebroadcast by Deutschlandfunk Kultur on 9 January 2024; programme starts at 8:03 pm.
