The finalists are Iohan Coman and Ștefan Şimonca-Opriţa from Romania, Lilia Pocitari from Moldova, Zhang Zou from China, and Matthew Hakkarainen, who represents the United States and Finland.
They will perform a concerto by Prokofiev, Shostakovich or Wajnberg with the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Karol Szymanowski Music Academy in Katowice on Friday and Saturday.
The prizewinners will be announced on Sunday, December 8, coinciding with the 105th anniversary of Wajnberg’s birth.
The winner will take home a cash prize of EUR 10,000.
The Wajnberg International Violin Competition, now in its second edition, aims to promote the composer’s legacy.
Born in Warsaw in 1909, Mieczysław Wajnberg was a Polish Jew who escaped the Nazis by fleeing into the Soviet Union.
In 1943, he settled in Moscow, where he worked as a composer and pianist.
In 1953, he was arrested as part of Josef Stalin’s anti-Semitic purges, but was released after the Soviet dictator’s death thanks to support from Dmitri Shostakovich, the well-known Russian composer and pianist.
Wajnberg, otherwise known as Weinberg, died in Moscow in 1996, leaving behind an output of more than 20 symphonies, 17 string quartets and six operas, as well as a wealth of chamber music for various instruments and songs.
The past two decades have seen a revival of interest in Wajnberg’s music.
The chairman of the competition jury, violinist Szymon Krzeszowiec, has said that Wajnberg's music deserves broader exposure.
Krzeszowiec told public broadcaster Polish Radio that the late Israeli conductor Gabriel Chmura was instrumental in blazing the trail for the promotion of Wajnberg's legacy.
During his tenure as music director of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice from 2001 to 2007, Chmura recorded a selection of Wajnberg’s symphonies for the British classical music label Chandos.
(mk/gs)