TENERIFE MUSIC FESTIVAL & COMPETITION
FACULTY AND JURY
Violin / Artistic director - Judith Choi Castro
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Judith is the Artistic Director of the Festival Academy of Music Tenerife and Co-founder of the Agustin Aponte International Music Competition. She graduated with a Masters degree from the Royal Academy of Music, after also studying at the Royal College of Music, London and the Manhattan School of Music, New York. She now performs worldwide as a chamber musician and orchestral player.
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For more information please visit her website :
www.judithchoicastro.com
Founder - Vice President / Conductor - Jung Chul Choi
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Jung Chul Choi studied orchestral conducting and composition with Armando Blanquer in Valencia, Lawrence Leonard and George Hurst in England.
Firstly trained as a trombonist, Jung Chul was principal of the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and professor of the Conservatoire Superior of Santa Cruz, Tenerife. He then founded and became Principal Director of Arona Music School until 2007.
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Jung Chul has conducted around the world to countries such as Italy, Norway, Russia, South Korea and Spain and currently is in the process of publishing his methods of conducting techniques.
Cello - Kathleen Balfe
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Kathleen Balfe is principal cellist of the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada. She has collaborated with the composers of her time from a formative age. More recently, the 2020 Woman Composer Workshop of the Manuel de Falla Spanish Music Festival in Cadiz. This November, Kathleen Balfe will perform a contemporary solo recital with Capriccio by Penderecki as a reference piece for the Área de Creación Musical in Mallorca. It includes premieres by Anna Bofill and Jesús Rueda.
Kathleen Balfe has also collaborated as a chamber musician with the Benaïm Quartet, the Quantum Ensemble, Messiaen Ensemble, New Century Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, and the Taller Atlántico, among numerous others, performing internationally in places including Costa Rica, Monaco, Italy, France, Israel, and the Czech Republic.
Ms. Balfe is a founding member of Ensemble NeoArs Sonora which specializes in contemporary music. This group received INAEM (department of culture) and was a recipient of the BBVA recording grant in 2016.
Violin - Andrea Kim
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German violinist Andrea Kim, has performed as soloist and chamber musician in several international music festivals including her solo debut at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik
Festival in 2006 and her solo concert live recorded with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra in November 2010 under the direction of K. Järvi.
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Since 2006, Andrea has been assistant concertmaster of the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra under Paavo Jarvi.
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Since January 2017 she is first violinist of the Bavarian Radio Symphonie Orchestra.
Viola - Sviatoslav Belonogov
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Principal Viola at the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra (OST) since 1997, Sviatoslav has also incorporated the viola d'amore into his musical resources. A graduate of the Russian Music Academy under the tutelage of Professor Vyacheslav Trushin, he was awarded Master of Fine Arts Degree in 1992.
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Sviatoslav was a prize-winner of the USSR National Viola Competition in Lvov (1988), and a laureate of the Dmitri Shostakovich String Quartet Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia (1993). He was soloist of the State Symphony Orchestra of Moscow (1989-1990) conducted by Vassily Sinaisky and Vladimir Ponkin, member of the National Orchestra of Russia (1990-1994) conducted by Mikhail Pletnev, and also soloist at the chamber orchestra camera Moscow Virtuosi (1994-1997) conducted by Vladimir Spivakov.
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Piano - Jong-Gyung Park
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Jong-Gyung Park has firmly established herself as one of the leading pianists of her generation. She made her orchestral debut at the age of thirteen with Boston Symphony Orchestra and has since appeared with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Haifa Symphony Orchestra, Montevideo Symphony Orchestra.
Jong-Gyung has performed across the UK and abroad: in North and South America, Germany, Russia, Italy, and Netherlands.
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Ms. Park has received numerous international awards including Bronze medals at the Sviatoslav Richter International piano competition, the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition in Israel and the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in Italy where she also received Busoni Prize for commissioned work and Laureate at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Belgium. She was the winner of Haverhill Sinfonia International Soloist Competition in UK, which as result saw her touring and playing throughout the venues in England.
Jong-Gyung was Born in Korea, where she started studying the piano at age three. Her professional education followed at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston where he earned Bachelor’s program with full scholarship. After the studies in Boston, she was invited to take part in the prestigious “Il Fondazione per Il Pianoforte” in Como, Italy where he could interact with eminent figures in music world as Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Dmitri Bashkirov, Fou Ts’ong, Leon Fleisher, Alicia de Larocha, and Martha Argerich. She also studied at the Hochschule für Music in Munich where she received the Artist Diploma.
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Flute - Mihi Kim
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Mihi Kim is currently pursuing her career as an international soloist in Europe, the Americas and Asia. She regularly gives master classes in France and abroad and has taught in Germany, Korea, Taiwan, Serbia, Japan, Slovenia, USA, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, England, Chile and Russia, and will soon appear in Brazil, Canada and China.
She currently is Professor at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris “Alfred Cortot” for Flute and Piccolo and at the CRD Conservatory of Issy-Les- Moulineaux, Paris. She has also been a member of the Ensemble Multilatérale since 2004 and is a Miyazawa International Artist, promoted by Miyazawa Flutes Inc. Japan, USA and Alto Musique - Flute Studio France.
For more information please visit her website :
Piano / Piano accompanist - John Paul Ekins
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In great demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician, John Paul Ekins has given performances throughout the UK, and overseas, and he has been broadcast on the BBC, on Romanian national television and radio, and on Polish television. He graduated from the Royal College of Music with First Class Honours, was awarded the James Anthony Horne Scholarship by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he graduated with Master of Performance (Distinction) in 2011.
He has performed at a number of prestigious venues in the UK and abroad, including Bucharest's Athenaeum, Zurich's Tonhalle, Prague's Martinu Hall, Bergen's Troldhaugen, Krakow's Florianka Hall, London's Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
John Paul was particularly honoured to be presented to Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Prince Philip at a Reception for Young Performers at Buckingham Palace.
You can find out more information on John Paul at www.jpekinspianist.com or follow him on Twitter @jpekinspianist.
Piano / Piano accompanist - Aurélien Pontier
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Pianist Aurélien Pontier first performed on the stage of the Paris Opera at the age of
nine. At the age of 13 he entered the Conservatoire de Paris (class of Jean-François Heisser), being the youngest student of this institution. He graduated three years later with a First prize in piano and chamber music.
He is First-prize winner of the Vladimir Krainev Competition in Kiev ( Ukraine ) as well as Third Prize at the International Piano Competition in Chioggia ( Italy). He has played with numerous orchestras such as Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre National de Montpellier, Padova-Venezia Orchestra, Kharkov Philarmonia, Camerata Bohemiana of Pragua.
He has given solo performances including the Great Hall of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the Auditorium du Louvre, l'Arsenal de Metz, in various countries such as Italy, England, Germany, Swiss, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia,USA, Canada.
Cello
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to be confirmed