International Competition for Choir Conductors "Mariele Ventre"

The final concert, presented by Simona Marchini, and the ceremony to present the awards to the winners of the fourth edition of the International Competition for Choir Conductors "Mariele Ventre" took place on the 13^th October, in the Teatro Comunale of Bologna.
37 participants of 18 different nationalities sent their application for the competition. Out of these, 10 competitors were chosen by the Jury for the final selection:

For the Special Section for treble choir conductors, the jury selected 5 candidates:

On Tuesday 9^th, Wednesday 10^th and Thursday 11^th, the jury examined the 10 competitors who directed the three choirs taking part in the third edition of the competition – the Ensemble Orlando Friburgo from Fribourg (Switzerland), in the Renaissance- Baroque repertoire, the Coro Polifonico di Ruda, from Ruda (Italy) in the Romantic repertoire, and the Grex Vocalis from Oslo (Norway) in the Modern and Contemporary Repertoire.
At the end of the three days, the jury selected 4 finalists: Lorenzo Donati, Steffen Schreyer, Takuya Yokoyama e Michael Zaugg.

The final took place on the 13^th of October in the choir room of the Teatro Comunale of Bologna. After the test the Jury assigned the 1^st prize of 7,000 euros and the silver cup of the President of the Italian Republic to Lorenzo Donati (Italy) and the 2^nd prize ex-aequo to Steffen Schreyer (Germany) and Takuya Yokoyama (Japan). The jury decided not to assign the 3^rd prize and to add the sum to the 2^nd prize. Therefore, the winners received 2,750 euros each.

On the 12^th of October, after the opening ceremony of the "Laboratorio Musicale Mariele Ventre" at the Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica di Bologna, the first edition of the special section for treble choir conductors took place in the Sala Eventi of the museum. The single prize offered by Aczon s.p.a. was assigned ex-aequo to Lorenzo Donati (Italia) and Maja Cilenšek (Slovenia).