Korean Tenor Wins the Éva Marton International Singing Competition

With the performance of the twelve finalists as well as the ceremonial presentation of prizes and the announcement of special awards, the Éva Marton International Singing Competition of 2024 organized by the Liszt Academy closed on Sunday evening at the Hungarian State Opera, reads the Academy’s press release.

The live rounds of Liszt Academy’s 6th Éva Marton International Singing Competition started on Monday with 56 contestants. The event was sponsored by MOL – New Europe Foundation and the National Cultural Fund of Hungary, and offered prizes totaling more than 75,000 euros.

In his speech at the gala concert, the patron of the competition, Balázs Hankó, Minister of Culture and Innovation, recalled that the competition opens up a wealth of career opportunities for participants. He added that the aim is not only to preserve value, but also to create it, and that classical culture representing value has a key role to play in this regard. Speaking about Éva Marton, he said that

she has left an unforgettable memory on the international opera stage, she is a shining star of the world of opera, and will forever be part of the immortals.

In her assessment, Éva Marton, co-founder of the Friends of Hungary Foundation (MOBA) and publisher of news portals, Hungary Today and Ungarn Heute, said that the quality of the competition had not dropped over the past ten years: singers entering the competition have been getting better and better, meaning that this time there were again extremely talented ones. She expressed her gratitude to the Hungarian State Opera for hosting the gala and to the Liszt Academy for organizing it. “There is no competition like this, no Opera House like this, no Academy of Music like this in the world,” she added. “Hungarians are friendly, kind and talented people, and we can compete with anyone in the world, whether in science, literature or music,” she said.

The first prize of 30,000 euros went to Korean tenor Park Jihoon, the second prize of 20,000 euros to Romanian baritone Mihai Damian and the third prize of 10,000 euros to Chinese mezzo-soprano Wu Hongni.

Éva Marton awarded her special prize of 10,000 euros, courtesy of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, to Russian soprano Alexandra Zotova, while the audience prize went to Korean soprano Yeo Yeeun.

Other prestigious special prizes were also announced at the gala on Sunday. The award for best Liszt interpretation went to the Russian soprano Zoe Hippius and Park Jihoon, as decided by the jury. The latter was invited by the Hungarian State Opera, which also offered performance opportunity to Wu Hongni.

Further prizes:

• Romanian baritone Mihai Damian has been invited by Müpa Budapest and the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Alexandra Zotova may attend a master class with jury member Anatoli Goussev, Ukrainian-born vocal master from Italy, and she has been invited by the Margitsziget Theater, too.
• Russian soprano Elizaveta Kulagina has received invitations from the Liszt Academy and the Hungarian State Opera, and has also won a package from media company Fidelio.
• Kazakh baritone Dinmukhamed Koshkinbayev received the 1000 euros Bravo Baritone Prize from the Classic Mecenat Foundation Of Mongolia.
• American soprano Shannon Keegan received an invitation from the House of Music Hungary, and Hungarian soprano Renáta Gebe-Fűgi won a package from the media company Papageno.

Featured image: Liszt Academy/László Mudra