Viotti International Music Competition

The Viotti International Music Competition (Italian: Concorso Internazionale di Musica Viotti), named after the Italian composer and violinist Gian (Giovanni) Battista Viotti (1755–1824), is held every year in Vercelli, Piedmont. It was founded by violinist Joseph Robbone in 1950 and has been, since 1957, a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions.

The competition is dedicated primarily to piano and opera singing, with rotating categories of voice (even numbered years), piano (odd numbered years),^[1]^[2] but also features sections for violin, chamber music, oboe, guitar, dance and composition, among others.

In the fifty years since its inception, thousands of competitors have taken part, many of whom have reached international fame. They include Luigi Alva, Claudio Abbado, Cathal Breslin, Luciano Pavarotti, Mirella Freni, Nicola Martinucci, Salvatore Accardo, Joaquín Achúcarro, Daniel Barenboim, Renato Bruson, Piero Cappuccilli, Raina Kabaivanska, Sumi Jo, Yeol Eum Son, Jeanne You, Violetta Egorova.

The judges have included Franco Corelli, Carlo Maria Giulini, Klaus Hellwig, Yehudi Menuhin, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Birgit Nilsson, Carl Orff, Aureliano Pertile, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Renata Scotto, Joan Sutherland, and Richard Aaker Trythall, Raina Kabaivanska.

Piano Winners

1950s

1950

1: Jean Micault
2: Maria Teresa Garatti; Carlos Rivero Morales
3: Licia Mancini

1951

1: Isabella Salamon
2: [Hans] Peter Wallfisch
3: Pieralberto Biondi

1952

1: René Pouget
2: Walter Blankenheim
3: Alexander Jenner; Andrzej Wasowski

1953

1: Joaquín Achúcarro; Luciano Bertolini; Gabriel Tacchino
2: Monte Hill Davis; Eléonore Kraemer
3: Adriana Brugnolini [Vecchiato]; Jack Edwin Guerry

1954

1: Yoko Kono
2: Cécile Ousset; Chiaralberta Pastorelli; Kurt Bauer; Richard Cass
3: Claudine Durussel; Marion Zarzeczna; Bruno Fabius; Alberto Neuman (Argentina); Emanuele Perrotta (Italy)
Grand Prix: Daniel Barenboim

1955

1: Cécile Ousset
2: Alberto Colombo
3: Danièle Dechenne–Decroos; Günter Ludwig; Natascia Calza; Pierre Delgrange; Alain Barnheim
Finalist: Claudio Abbado

1956

1: Robert Alexander Bohnke
2: Pier Narciso Masi; James Mathis
3: —

1957

1: —
2: Claude Conard-Dargier; George Katz
3: Andrée Darras

1958

1: —
2: Ivan Roy Davis Jr.; Claude Berard
3: —

1959

1: —
2: John Perry; Irène Pamboukjian; Annick Savornin-Daru
3: Gino Brandi; Vittorio Del Col; Pierre-Yves Le Roux; Luisa De Robertis; Raffaella D’Esposito

1960s

1960

1: Dale Bartlett
2: Eugenia Hymann Monacelli; Midori Miura
3: Bruno Pompili; Jerzy Gajek

1961

1: Alberto Neuman
2: Giorgio Sacchetti
3: Antonio Rodríguez Baciero; Luigi Galvani

1962

1: —
2 (Grand Prix): Lidia Rocchetti; Christian Bernard
2: Minka Royer-Routcheva; Giuliano Silveri; Alessandro Specchi
3: —

1963

1: Franco Angeleri; Gernot Kahl
2: Paule-Françoise Bonnet; Gi-In Wang – Dag Achatz; – Ivan Darel-Kaiserman; Marco Vavolo
3: —

1964

1: François-Joël Thiollier
2: Rafael Orozco-Flores; Lois-Carole Pachucki
3: Claude Savard

1965

1: Joaquín Ángel Soriano Villanueva
2: Yoshiya Iwamoto; Robert Spillman (US); [Norma] Raquel Boldorini; Leonora Milá i Romeu; Suzanne Husson
3: Fausto Di Cesare; Vladimir Krpan