The international jury of the competition is composed of 9 members who change every year, with the exception of the president of the jury, who is the artistic director. In addition to their artistic and professional excellence, the members of the jury are selected with a view to representing different countries and piano schools, gender parity and generational diversity. Priority consideration will also be given to previous winners of the competition. Jury members may not present family members or students with whom they have worked in the last three academic years.
Carlos Cebro, born in Montevideo, studied with Eliane Richepin and completed his studies in Paris with Vlado Perlemuter, from whom he inherited his music and grand piano. Winner of many international competition prizes, he has performed worldwide with chamber music ensembles and orchestras under the baton of conductors such as Jacques Bodmer, Gustav König, Laszlo Halasz or Antonio Vito. He has been a piano accompanist for renowned singers, such as Arleen Auger, Rita Streich, or George London, among others, at the Salzburg Festival, while working at the Mozarteum for a long period of time. He has served as a jury member in several international piano competitions and has taught master classes in Europe, Asia, and America. He has also performed in several recordings.
Carlos Cebro is the President of the Eliane Richepin Association in Montevideo (Uruguay), Artistic Director and President of the Jury at the Maria Canals International Music Competition in Barcelona as well as President of the Jury at the Brest (France) International Piano Competition. He has been made Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Ministry of Culture of the French Government.
Pianist Yukiko Akagi studied at the Toho College of Music in Tokyo, Mannes College of Music and Manhattan School of Music in New York, being a student of Nobuko Amada, Jerome Rose and Solomon Mikowsky. She also received advices from acclaimed pianists such as Earl Wild, György Sándor and Ruth Slencyznska, a student of the legendary Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Highlights among her awards include the Second Prize at the Maria Canals International Music Competition (2005), Fundación Guerrero International Piano Competition (2006) and First Prize at the José Roca International Piano Competition (2006), among others.
She made her American debut at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2004, highly praised by both public and the critics. Since then her career has blossomed throughout the United States, performing in some of its most important venues. Her performances have been recorded and broadcasted by New York’s WQXR in New York, CVTV or Chicago’s WFMT.
In Spain, she has been invited by some of the main Spanish orchestras such as the Spanish National Orchestra, the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra, the Vallès Symphony Orchestra and the Balearic Symphony Orchestra, among others.
Spanish pianist José Enrique Bagaria studied at the Conservatorio Superior Municipal de Música de Barcelona with Rosa Masferrer and Luiz de Moura Castro, and at the École Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot. He pursued his postgraduate studies with Stanislav Pochekin at the Centro Superior del Conservatorio del Liceo, where he works as a professor.
Between 1999 and 2003 he pursued his studies at Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía with Dmitri Bashkirov, Claudio Martínez Mehner and Galina Eguiazarova. Prize-winner at several international competitions, he won the First Prize at the 52nd Maria Canals International Music Competition.
He has often performed at prestigious concert halls such as the Palau de la Música, L’Auditori in Barcelona, the Auditorio Nacional and Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, the Philharmonia in Saint Petersburg, the National Philharmonic in Kiev, the Oriental Art Center in Shanghai, and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. He is a recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestras such as the Symphonic Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg, the Vienne Chamber Orchestra, the Salzburg Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Barcelona y Nacional de Cataluña, the Sinfónica de Galicia, and the Orquesta de Valencia.
Since 2016 he has been a membre of the Trio Cervelló. He has taught several courses and master classes and has been invited to serve as a jury member at national and international piano competitions.
The pianist Maria Luisa Cantos was born in Barcelona and studied at the Conservatory in her hometown. She obtained her piano teacher’s degree at the young age of 16.
She furthered her musical education in Paris and Vienna. She has performed numerous concerts as a soloist with various orchestras, as well as giving recitals in the most prestigious concert halls across Europe. Several artistic tours have taken her to different countries in the USA, including a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York.
M. Luisa Cantos possesses a wide and diverse repertoire, with her interpretations of composers such as Brahms, Schumann, and the Impressionists standing out. In addition to the best-known works of Spanish composers, her repertoire includes the complete works of Falla, Granados, Mompou, and Nin-Culmell. She has recorded several CDs featuring works by Spanish and French composers.
She is currently one of the most important performers of music from her country, with an international reach.
In parallel with her piano career, she is also dedicated to researching the history of Spanish music. In 1990, she founded the Spanish-Swiss Music Foundation, whose main objective is the promotion and dissemination of Spanish music in Switzerland and its impact in Central Europe, where she serves as President and Artistic Director. She has been awarded the Dame’s Bow, Order of Isabella the Catholic, for her cultural merits abroad.
Ukrainian pianist Regina Chernychko was born into a family of musicians and began her piano studies at the age of four at the Special Music School for Gifted Children in Kharkiv, then at the Karlsruhe University of Music, the International Piano Academy “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola and the Mozarteum University in Salzburg.
She won the 60th Maria Canals International Music Competition in Barcelona. She had previously won first prizes at other international competitions such as the Animato Foundation International Piano Competition in Zurich (Switzerland), the Pianistico Internazionale Spazio Teatro 89 in Milan (Italy) and the Ricard Viñes International Piano Competition in Lleida (Spain).
Chernychko has performed in prestigious halls such as the Sala Verdi in Milan, the Salle Cortot in Paris, the Great Hall of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, L’Auditori and the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona. She has also performed as a soloist with many important orchestras such as the National Symphony Orchestra of Belarus, the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, among others.
She has taken part in live TV programmes and made recordings for many radio stations. She has also recorded a CD of sonatas by Padre Antonio Soler for NAXOS.
From 2017, Chernychko is a professor at the Piano Academy Neue Sterne Hannover.
Frédéric Lagarde, a renowned French pianist, is considered one of the most outstanding talents of his generation. Winner of the First Prize at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, at other ten international competitions, and also prize-winner at the Maria Canals International Piano Competition, his career is characterized by a remarkable versatility and passion for music.
Lagarde is dedicated to a wide variety of repertoires, with a focus on lesser-known and contemporary composers. He has been called upon by composers such as Olivier Messiaen to perform their works, underlining his prestige in the musical field.
He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in renowned venues worldwide, such as the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Musikverein in Vienna, Rudolfinum Dvorak Hall in Prague, George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest, Opera House in Tokyo, Concert Hall in Shanghai, and many more. He collaborates with artists such as the Walter Trio and has performed as a soloist with symphony orchestras in Lisbon, Porto, Cannes and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. His recordings with Naxos, Mirare, and Alpha have received multiple awards.
Currently, Lagarde is a professor at the Pôle Supérieur de Musique de Dijon-Bourgogne and offers masterclasses worldwide, including the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, the University of São Paulo, the Prague Conservatory, the Janáček Academy in Brno, the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, Malaysia, and France.
The French-American pianist David Lively studied at the École Normale de Musique with Jules Gentil, where he later became dean of exams for 15 years. Lively has won international prizes including the Concours International Long-Thibaud, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, the Geneva International Music Competition, the International Tchaikovsky Competition (where he was awarded the Special Prize for Contemporary Music) and the Dino Ciani Prize of La Scala of Milan.
He has performed as a soloist with orchestras under conductors such as Erich Leinsdorf, Michael Gielen, Kurt Sanderling, Rafael Kubelik, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Colin Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kent Nagano, Dennis Russell Davies among others. His recordings include particularly challenging and rarely performed works, as the only complete recording of Furtwängler’s Sinfonisches Konzert with Alfred Walter, and both concertos of Joseph Marx directed by Steven Sloane.
David Lively is a member of the Académie de musique française at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. He has recorded the complete Nocturnes by Gabriel Fauré and chamber music including sonatas by Fauré, Debussy and Ravel with violinist Tatiana Samouil.
He is regularly invited to serve on juries for the world’s most prestigious international competitions. He is one of the founders of the International Association of Artists for Peace.
Pianist Ewa Osinska graduated from the Academy of Music in Warsaw. Later, she received the Diploma from the Conservatoire Européen in Paris where she studied with maestro Vlado Perlemuter and Suzanne Roche.
Winner of international piano competitions such as Premio Jaén Piano, in Jaén and International Alfredo Casella, in Naples, she has performed in Europe’s most prestigious venues: Salle Pleyel, Theatre des Champs Elysees, Salle Gaveau, Wigmore Hall, Queen Elisabeth Hall, Warsaw Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Moscow Rachmaninow Hall; as well as in Japan and the USA. She has performed with leading orchestras such as Poland’s National Philharmonic Orchestra, The BBC Orchestra, or Orchestra de la Suisse Romande, among others, under the baton of conductors such as Semkow, Maksymiuk, Kaspszyk, Akyiama, Plasson and Woodsworth.
Ewa Osinska was the first performer to play Dimitri Shostakovitch’s Piano Sonata No. 1 in Paris, London, Lausanne, and Warsaw.
Jury member of several international competitions, Osinska has recorded Chopin’s integral work for piano, among many other recordings. She has received the Medal for Merit to Polish Culture from the president of Poland, the Knight’s Cross of the Polonia Restituta Order, and, in France, L’Ordre du Mérite Artistique and the Chevalier de L’Ordre International des Arts.
German pianist Uta Weyand studied with Elza Kolodin, Leon Fleisher, Vitaly Margulis and Joaquín Soriano in Germany, United States and Spain. In addition to being awarded a scholarship by the German government for her postgraduate studies, she won the first prize at the Iturbe International Piano Competition in Valencia, and the Steinway Piano Competition in Berlin. She was also awarded with a special prize: best music performer of contemporary Spanish music.
Since 1989, Uta Weyand offers recitals and concerts with orchestras in most European Union countries, as well as in Russia, Brazil, United States and Cuba. She performs with great orchestras and has collaborated with directors such as Jesús López Cobos, José Ramón Encinar, Enrique García Asensio, Manuel Galduf, Jac van Steen and Gabriel Chmura, among others.
She combines her regular concert activity with pedagogy, conducting master classes in conservatories and universities in Europe, United States, China, Japan, Singapore and South America. Many renowned international piano competitions feature Uta Weyand as a juror, such as Franz Liszt in Weimar and Hamamatsu in Japan, among others.
She received worldwide acclaim for her recordings of the complete works by Manuel de Falla.
Uta Weyand is a founder of the PIANALE International Academy & Competition and promoter of the concert series Schlosskonzerte Osthessen in Germany.
