Rubikis Wins Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition!
Ainars Rubikis, 31-year-old conductor, has won the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra’s International Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition.
Rubikis won a prize of €20,000 and he conducts the orchestra in a public concert featuring the competition repertoire on Friday evening, March 12, 2010. Rubikis was one of two finalists in the competition, along with Aziz Shokhakimov, a 21-year-old from Uzbekistan, who was awarded the second prize of €10,000. The third prize (€5000) went to semi-finalist Yordan Kamdzhalov, a 29-year-old from Bulgaria.
In each section of the competition the conductors rehearsed and performed sections of music from Haydn’s Symphony No 104, Mahler’s Symphony No 4 and a selection of orchestral songs; also Webern’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op 10.
Contemporary music was represented by Jörg Widmann’s Con brio (2008) and Matthias Pintscher’s towards Osiris (2005).
Jury members included conductors Jonathan Nott and Herbert Blomstedt; Jonathan Mills, director of the Edinburgh Festival; and representatives from the orchestra and the arts in Germany.
The patron of the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition is the composer’s granddaughter, Marina Mahler.