60: is the result that enhances the encouraging outcome of the final of the first edition of the European Competition 2021 when an Italian was unanimously declared the winner, a Frenchman in second place and a German in third. It is a number that speaks of the desire to put oneself out there, in order to grow artistically and establish oneself on the horizon of a possible perspective. This is the number of entrants who want to participate in the Vittorio Veneto Violin Competition this year: very talented young violinists who come from thirteen European countries, stretching from Sweden to Portugal.
Some are already winners of famous international competitions; this is why today the Vittorio Veneto Competition is not only a unique opportunity but also a chance to emerge in professional life: the examination program itself is designed to highlight and thus reward musical pliability and not only the virtuosity and technical mastery of the competitors. The personalities who enliven the composition of our jury this year also embody and reestablish artistry at the highest level: Artistic Director of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai in Turin Ernesto Schiavi; Virginie Robilliard, French soloist and teacher in the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique de Lausanne; Matthias Wollong, pupil of Tibor Varga and Concertmaster of the Dresden State Chapel Orchestra; Stefan Milenkovich, Italian-Serbian soloist assistant to Itzhak Perlman at the Julliard School in New York.
The aim of the Competition is therefore to reflect the verisimilitude and reliability of an architecture founded on the solidity of Living Stones, where the competitors can try themselves and feel a constitutive part. Among the Living Stones I myself, as Artistic Director and member of the jury, wish to follow and assist the candidates by personally accompanying them and play with them at the final round. Being First Shoulder Violin of the Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala gives me the concrete opportunity to build such mosaic synergy through a professional orchestra formed by the Strings of La Scala and the Winds of the Rai in Turin. Giving light and splendor to such a cathedral will be Maestro David Coleman conducting the final, whom I warmly thank for his valuable and renewed contribution.
We wish to open the 2023 edition with a special concert to pay tribute to the founder of the competition Mario Benvenuti, whose dies natalis occurred in 1995.Brilliant maestro and celebrated violinist of the Chigiano Quintet, of which we remember the violist Giovanni Leone with whom I began my instrumental training. I will dedicate to Benvenuti Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio composed in 1881 and completed in January 1882 entitled "To the Memory of a Great Artist." The piano trio will be performed by Roberto Paruzzo, heir to the great school of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, and Amedeo Cicchese, Principal Cellist of the Orchestra of the Teatro Regio in Turin. Roberto and Amedeo are warm friends to me, as well as being considered among the greatest Italian chamber musicians.
I thank the Rai which has expressed its appreciation of our initiative with the granting of its patronage, in addition to the already confirmed one of the Teatro alla Scala.
I renew my heartfelt thanks to the Municipality of Vittorio Veneto which, with its sensitivity, has allowed the fulfillment of this event that we can truly call a work of art, in its broadest, truest and most engaging meaning of the term because it is open to everyone and it opens the heart of everyone to the sense of beauty that manifests itself in the harmony of music.
Francesco De Angelis