The pre-selection jury is made up of a team of professional pianists and renowned pedagogues, selected for their artistic criteria, teaching experience, and knowledge of emerging young talents. Its members are renewed every year.
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 has also been mentored by such distinguish pianists 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. Herperformances 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. Yukiko Akagi is Artistic Director and President of the Jury at the Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona.
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.
Vestards Šimkus is a Latvian pianist, composer and improviser. He was a student in Emīls Dārziņš Music School in Riga under Ruta Švinka, Ligita Muižarāja, Teofils Biķis and Sergejs Osokins. He studied at the University of Southern California under Daniel Pollack, at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid under Dimitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martínez Mehner and at the Richard Strauss Konservatorium in Munich under Vadim Suchanov. Shimkus has also studied composition for five years under the renowned Latvian contemporary composer Pēteris Vasks. He performs improvised concerts and takes part in experimental events with actors and performance artists.
He has won several international and national awards such as the 1st Prize at the F. Liszt International Competition in Los Angeles and the 1st Prize and the Audience Prize at the 55th Maria Canals International Music Competition in Barcelona, among others. Šimkus plays classical repertoire, composes music for cinema and theatre, and performs his own compositions and spontaneous improvisations.
As a solo pianist, he has performed in major concert halls around the world including Konzerthaus (Vienna and Berlin), Palau de la Música (Barcelona) and Oriental Art Center (Shanghai). Šimkus has written two piano concertos and a number of solo piano and chamber music works.
