IBLA International Competition - Winners

Winners

Since the first edition of the IBLA Grand Prize on the occasion of the Christopher Colombus Festival 1492-1992 celebrating the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America, the IBLA Foundation has been dedicated to discovering new talent from around the world. Winners are assisted in establishing concert careers by facilitating their access to performance venues and professional contacts.

Throughout the years the IBLA Grand Prize winners have received the opportunity to be presented in such prestigious venues as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Tchaikovsky Bolshoi Hall in Moscow, Carnegie Recital Hall and to perform for the President of Italy, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro at the Great Hall of the University of Rome, for world-renowned Metropolitan Opera sopranos Licia Albanese and Anna Moffo at Steinway Hall and at the United Nations' Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium. With the support of Baroness Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò, IBLA Winners have also performed at New York University's Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò for Metropolitan Opera soprano and Lucine Amara, for pianists Jerome Lowenthal of the Juilliard School, Ursula Opens from Northwestern University and for Mario Delliponti of the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milano. With the support of the Honorable Senator Yvette Swan, Minister of Cultural Affairs, IBLA winners have been presented in Bermuda on the occasion of the Life Time Achievement Awards. IBLA Winners have also been presented in performance/seminar at McGill University in Montreal and at the Queen's University in Kingston, Canada as well as at the Juilliard School, the University of Washington in Seattle, the North Carolina School of the Arts and the University of Arkansas. In cooperation with the YAMAHA Corporation of America, IBLA Foundation offers a Master Class Series which enables winners to refine their performances through the experience of such masters as Fernando Laires and Nelita True of the Eastman School of Music and Jerome Lowenthal of the Juilliard School.

The IBLA Foundation with the cooperation of the Office of the Mayor, the Sister Cities Commission, Chamber of Commerce and the Public Library System of Little Rock, Arkansas, offers an annual tour of public concerts and community outreach programs which allows IBLA Winners to perform for and interact with hundreds of local students and families by sharing their professional experience and artistic talents.

Through the support of the late pianist Angel Chen, Executive Director of Angelok Records, the IBLA Jordania Prize has offered annually a Moscow debut and CD recording at the Tchaikowsky Bolshoi Hall with the Russian Federal Orchestra conducted by Maestro Vaktang Jordania.

Academic scholarships have been offered to IBLA Winners by the North Carolina School of the Arts, the University of Iowa, the University of Northern Iowa, Elon College in North Carolina, the University of SouthWestern Louisiana, the DIT Music College in Dublin and the Scicli International Music Academy in Sicily.

With the support of Chancellor Alexander Ewing from the North Carolina School of the Arts, the IBLA Foundation has also presented modern dance performances in Italy as well as in the USA through the Human Dance Company and the works of choreographer Michael Yasenak.

"Complex movements of human bodies symbolized the ambiguities of spiritual experience ... flesh and spirit carried on an especially intense conversation ... compelling ... their mystical fervor was combined with rational confusion .... mystery and ecstasy ... attested to Mr. Yasenak's powers of choreographic invention"

IBLA winners have received worldwide critical acclaim with praises.