1st prize
Julian Schwarz (U.S.) & Marika Bournaki (Canada)

Cello/Piano

2nd prize and special prize for the best performance of Some Assembly Required
Coleman Itzkoff (U.S.) & Alin Melik-Adamyan (Armenia)

Cello/Piano

3rd prize
Hiroka Matsumoto (Japan) & Gaku Sugibayashi (Japan)

Violin/Piano

Martin Beaver

Jury Chairman

Canadian violinist Martin Beaver was First Violin of the world-renowned Tokyo String Quartet from June 2002 until its final concert in July 2013. As such, he appeared to critical and public acclaim on the major stages of the world including New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Berliner Philharmonie, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and the Sydney Opera House. As a member of the Tokyo String Quartet, Mr. Beaver was privileged to perform on the 1727 Stradivarius violin from the “Paganini Quartet” set of instruments, on generous loan to the quartet from the Nippon Music Foundation. Recordings of the Tokyo String Quartet during his tenure notably include the complete Beethoven quartets on the Harmonia Mundi label.

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Elisabeth Pridonoff

Elisabeth Pridonoff has appeared with orchestras and on recital series throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Asia and has performed and taught at music festivals throughout the world including the Amalfi, Prague, Barcelona, Belgium, Chautauqua, and InterHarmony. She is an Emerita Professor of Piano at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, and during the summers is on the faculty of the Brevard Festival. Previously she was co-artistic director of the CCM Prague International Piano Institute with her husband Eugene Pridonoff. A graduate of the Juilliard School, she holds masters degrees in both piano and voice having studied piano with Sasha Gorodnitsky and Adele Marcus, and voice with Hans Heinz and Anna Kaskas.

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Richie Hawley

Richie Hawley is a versatile and critically acclaimed artist who ranks among the most distinguished clarinetists of his generation. Mr. Hawley was appointed Principal Clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1994 at the age of 23, only two years after graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music. He has since enjoyed a rewarding and multifaceted career as an orchestral clarinetist, recitalist, chamber musician, teacher and clinician. From 1994-2011, as the Principal Clarinet of the CSO, he impressed audiences around the world with a wide-ranging talent that blended virtuosity and the velvety, sonorous tone that has become his trademark. The Cincinnati Enquirer has praised him for the “seamless flowing tone so many clarinetists long for and few can achieve.” Many of the 60+ recordings by the CSO and Cincinnati Pops during his tenure have featured major solos of the clarinet repertoire. American Record Guide hailed Hawley’s “gorgeous” clarinet solo in the CSO’s Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 as “the crowning achievement” of the recording by Maestro Jesus Lopez-Cobos.

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1st prize, audience favorite award, special prize for best performance of True Green
Iwo Jedynecki (Poland) & Aleksander Krzyżanowski (Poland)

Accordion/Piano

2nd prize (tie)
YuEun Kim (South Korea) & Sung Chang (South Korea)

Violin/Piano

2nd prize (tie)
Matthew Cohen (U.S.) & Zhenni Li (China)

Viola/Piano

Jon Kimura Parker

Jury Chairman

Artistic Director of the Honens International Piano Competition and Festival in Calgary, Jon Kimura Parker is a veteran of the international concert stage, with multiple solo appearances in the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, London’s South Bank, the Sydney Opera House, and the Beijing Concert Hall, Jon Kimura Parker continues to perform to great acclaim. Conductors he has recently worked with include Teddy Abrams, Claus Peter Flor, James Gaffigan, Hans Graf, Matthew Halls, Pablo Heras-Cassado, Jeffrey Kahane, Gianandrea Noseda, Peter Oundjian, Larry Rachleff, Lahav Shani, Bramwell Tovey, Joshua Weilerstein, David Zinman, Xu Zhong and Pinchas Zukerman. A true Canadian ambassador of music, Mr. Parker has given command performances for Queen Elizabeth II, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Prime Ministers of Canada and Japan. He is an Officer of The Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian honor. This past May he was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and he also holds an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

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Ani Kavafian

Violinist Ani Kavafian continues to enjoy a busy career as a chamber musician and soloist. She is also in great demand as a teacher, having taught at the Mannes and Manhattan schools of music, Queens College, McGill, and Stony Brook universities. In 2006 she was appointed full professor in the practice of violin at Yale. She conducts master classes around the country and was a guest lecturer and performer at Indiana University in 2016 and will be conducting classes at Oberlin College during the 2018-19 season. As a soloist, she has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras, as well as the Los Angeles and Saint Paul chamber orchestras.

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Richie Hawley

Richie Hawley is a versatile and critically acclaimed artist who ranks among the most distinguished clarinetists of his generation. Mr. Hawley was appointed Principal Clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1994 at the age of 23, only two years after graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music. He has since enjoyed a rewarding and multifaceted career as an orchestral clarinetist, recitalist, chamber musician, teacher and clinician. From 1994-2011, as the Principal Clarinet of the CSO, he impressed audiences around the world with a wide-ranging talent that blended virtuosity and the velvety, sonorous tone that has become his trademark. The Cincinnati Enquirer has praised him for the “seamless flowing tone so many clarinetists long for and few can achieve.” Many of the 60+ recordings by the CSO and Cincinnati Pops during his tenure have featured major solos of the clarinet repertoire. American Record Guide hailed Hawley’s “gorgeous” clarinet solo in the CSO’s Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 as “the crowning achievement” of the recording by Maestro Jesus Lopez-Cobos.

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Mina Gajić

Founder and Artistic Director

A versatile pianist, Mina Gajić began her education and music career in Yugoslavia. She has concertized in Italy, France, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Montenegro, China, and in the United States. She performs chamber music focusing on an eclectic repertory spanning the centuries and styles, on historic period pianos in addition to modern concert instruments. She has performed as concerto soloist with orchestras in Europe, the United States, and South America, and has appeared at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival, Prague Piano Festival and the Boulder Bach Festival, Colorado. Her awards include first prize at the International Competition Cittá di Stresa, Italy; third prize at the Nikolai Rubinstein Competition in Paris; first prize at the Competition of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic Competition of Serbia for five consecutive years; first prize at the Stanković Competition in Belgrade with special distinction for collaborative artistry, as well as semi-finalist at the Shanghai International Piano Competition.

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Julian Schwarz

2016 BICMC Winner

Cellist Julian Schwarz was born in 1991 to a multigenerational musical family. As the 1st prize winner in the professional cello division of the inaugural Schoenfeld International String Competition in Hong Kong in 2013, he has toured nationally and internationally as a soloist and recitalist. He has been recognized as a cellist destined to rank among the finest of the 21st century.The Schwarz-Bournaki Duo received the Top Prize at the 2016 Boulder International Chamber Music Competition (BICMC- “Art of Duo”).

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Marika Bournaki

2016 BICMC Winner

With unparalleled technical, musical and communication skills, Marika Bournaki is at once a world class performer, outstanding pianist, vivacious young woman and the freshest face on the classical music scene. Marika’s innovative approach to her art and performance is reflected in her recent collaboration, Let’s Play, with cutting­ edge and world­ renowned multimedia creative shop, Moment Factory. Her role as Ambassador to the Orchestra Symphonique de Montreal’s summer event, “A Cool, Classical Journey” was an opportunity to explore new and exciting ways to share her music with the public. The Schwarz-Bournaki Duo received the Top Prize at the 2016 Boulder International Chamber Music Competition (BICMC- “Art of Duo”).

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Zachary Carrettin

Artistic Director, Boulder Bach Festival

Conductor Zachary Carrettin is the Artistic Director of the Boulder Bach Festival, which celebrates its 35th season this year. He represents twenty-first century diversity in programming and a commitment to education, reflected in dynamic performances on period instruments, modern instruments, electric instruments, as well as collaborations with modern dance and film. He has performed in thirty countries on four continents, conducting symphony orchestras across Europe, the United States, and South America, including the National Symphony Orchestra of Bolivia and the National Symphony Orchestra of Moldova. His original compositions and arrangements have been presented by orchestras and new music ensembles internationally, from Brazil to Oman, and he conducted the first recording of the resurrected Symphony #1 by Gustavo Navarre. Additionally, he has collaborated with the Assad Brothers, the Tokyo String Quartet, and many luminaries in the early music world. His critical research has included multiple excursions in Italian archives, focusing on the work of Giuseppe Antonio Capuzzi (1755-1818). Carrettin performs on Cello da Spalla, viola, baroque/classical/romantic period and electric violins, and has served as concertmaster in a variety of projects including Ars Lyrica’s Grammy-nominated recording of Hasse’s Marc’ Antonio e Cleopatra, and the U.S. premiere of Vivaldi’s rediscovered opera Motezuma, with Musica Angelica and Long Beach Opera. An advocate of diversity in music, he toured one-hundred cities with Yanni and shared the stage with Ray Charles, the Black Crowes, Cake, Joan Jett and many others at festivals internationally; as Artist-in-Residence and Composer with Project Bandaloop aerial dance troupe, he premiered original work at the opening ceremony of the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and the Dayton Center for the Performing Arts.

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Tomasz Golka

Since winning 1st Prize at the 2003 Eduardo Mata International Conducting Competition, conductor and composer Tomasz Golka has appeared with orchestras in North and South America and Europe to great critical acclaim.

He has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Seattle, Fort Worth, Buffalo, Spoleto Festival USA, Xalapa, Jalisco, Warsaw Philharmonic, Baden-Baden Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, as well as the OFUNAM in Mexico City, and he has collaborated with some of the world’s top soloists, including Susan Graham, Alisa Weilerstein, Gary Hoffman, Inon Barnatan, Miriam Fried, Yuval Yaron, Joseph Swensen, and his pianist-brother Adam Golka.

Golka has served as Cover Conductor for Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra. He was a semi-finalist in the 2010 Solti International Conducting Competition and the 2005 Malko International Conducting competition, where he conducted the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and the Danish Radio Symphony, respectively.

Past positions include Chief Conductor of Colombia National Symphony in Bogotá and Music Director of the Lubbock Symphony. He is currently Music Director of Riverside Philharmonic and Interim Music Director of the St. Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra.

As composer, he is the recipient of the 2017 BMI/Jerry Goldsmith Film Scoring Scholarship and his concert works have been performed by the symphony orchestras of California, El Paso, Williamsport, Boca del Rio, and the Suffolk County Festival Orchestra.

At the 2006 Tanglewood Music Festival, Golka conducted a historic performance of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale with composers Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and John Harbison as narrators – a recording that is now available for sale through the Boston Symphony’s website bso.org. He has also recorded Ciranda das sete notas by Heitor Villa-Lobos for Melo Records.

Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1975, Golka’s family emigrated to Mexico in 1980 and to the United States in 1982. His conducting teachers were David Effron at Indiana University and Gustav Meier at the Peabody Conservatory. He also holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in violin from Rice University, where his teachers were Sergiu Luca and Kenneth Goldsmith.

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