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Protean Quartet win York Early Music International Young Artists Competition

Protean Quartet: First prize winners at York Early Music International Young Artists Competition

PROTEAN Quartet, from Germany, have won first prize at the 2022 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition.

“We are so proud to receive this wonderful prize which will widen the opportunity for us to share our music far and wide,” they said afterwards. “We were competing against some amazingly talented musicians and we are privileged to receive this great honour.”

They overcame fierce competition from six highly talented international ensembles in the biennial competition, organised by the National Centre for Early Music, York, in a day-long series of performances by the competitors on July 16.

Protean Quartet – Javier Aguilar, Edi Kotler, violins, Ricardo Gil, viola, and Clara Rada, cello – receive a professional recording contract from Linn Records, £1,000 cash prize and opportunities to work with BBC Radio 3 and the NCEM.

Under the title Tempus Omnia Vincit, they performed Josquin des Prez’s Mille Regretz and Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 13 in A minor (Rosamunde), Allegro ma non troppo and Andante.

After Inflammabile and Ensemble L’Aminta, both from Austria, and Fair Oriana, from Great Britain, had to withdraw due to unforeseen circumstances, the final featured Protean Quartet; ApotropaïK, from France; Ensemble Augelletti, from GB; Harmos Winds, from the Netherlands; Liturina, from GB; Palisander, from GB, and UnderStories, from Italy.

Triple success: ApotropaïK, from France, won the EEEmerging+ Prize, Friends of York Early Music Prize and Cambridge Music Prize

During the two days before the weekend competition, each ensemble presented an informal recital under the guidance of York Early Music Festival artistic advisors John Bryan and Steven Devine.

The aim of these recitals was to give finalists the opportunity to adapt to the performance space and become familiar with the York audience in advance of the competition.

Each group then gave their final recital to a distinguished judging panel at the NCEM, comprising: Edward Blakeman, from BBC Radio 3; Albert Edelman, president of Réseau Européen de Musique Ancienne, 2019-2022; Philip Hobbs, Linn Records producer and recording engineer; violinist Catherine Mackintosh and harpsichordist Professor Barbara Willi.

The 2022 competition was presented by John Bryan, Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Huddersfield and a member of the Rose Consort of Viols.

At the end of the competition, judging panel chair Philip Hobbs said: “The last three years have been extraordinary and extremely challenging for all young musicians. The calibre of musicianship we have seen is a tribute to their tenacity and dedication. The standard we see keeps going up and up and I would like to applaud all those who have taken part in this incredible day.”

Story of success: UnderStories, from Italy, won the Most Promising Young Artist prize

NCEM director and festival administrative director Delma Tomlin said: “It was wonderful to see the return of the competition and share the joy of being together again.

“The performances from these seven ensembles were of the highest calibre – congratulations to all. I would like to thank them and extend special thanks to our panel of judges for their hard work and support and to John Bryan and Steven Devine for their expertise and invaluable help.”

The EEEmerging+ Prize, Friends of York Early Music Prize and Cambridge Music Prize were all scooped by ApotropaïK, who performed Bella Donna, music from the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries.

A cash prize of £1,000 for the Most Promising Young Artist – individual instrumentalist or ensemble specialising in baroque repertoire – was awarded to UnderStories, whose performance featured works by Benedetto Marcello, Antonio Caldara and Antonio Vivaldi.

The competition provided a spectacular finale to the ten-day festival in a return to a full-scale live event that connected friends old and new through concerts, recitals and workshops staged in historic venues around York.

Competition highlights and music from the winning recital will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show later this year.

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Sollazzo Ensemble and BarrocoTout re-live York triumphs in NCEM online concerts

Sollazzo Ensemble: 2017 winners of the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition

THE National Centre for Early Music’s lockdown season of free concerts from York presents a double bill of Sollazzo Ensemble and BarrocoTout on Saturday.

“We have selected the very best concerts from two ensembles who won the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition in 2015 and 2017 respectively,” says director Dr Delma Tomlin.

To view these concerts for free at 1pm, follow facebook.com/yorkearlymusic/ or log on to the NCEM website, ncem.co.uk.

Directed by mediaeval fiddle player Anna Danilevskaia, joined by sopranos Perrine Devillers and Yukie Sato, tenor Vivien Simon, fiddle player Sophia Danilevskaia and harpist Vincent Kibildis, the Swiss group were recorded on July 11 2015.

Formed in 2014 in Basel, Switzerland, where the members were all studying at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, that year they were selected for the “EEEmerging” programme supported by Creative Europe, going on to win the main prize in the YorkEarly Music International Young Artists Competition and the public’s Friends of York Early Music Festival Prize in 2015.

They built their winning performance around Jehan de Cordoval and Jehan Ferrandes, two blind fiddle players in the 15th century court of Burgundy, playing works by Guillaume Dufay and Loyset Compère, among others, that they would have peformed .

“Cordoval and Ferrandes caught our attention because, unlike many medieval musicians known today, they were famous exclusively as performers, not as composers or theorists,” said Anna.

BarrocoTout: 2015 winners of the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition

“Soloists before the time of soloism: the simple fact of their existence and their success offers us a perspective on the richness of the musical scene at the Burgundian court in the 15th century.” 

BarracoTout, from Belgium, were recorded on July 15 2017 when winning the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, having been selected in 2015 for the EEEmerging programme (EEE standing for ‘Emerging European Ensembles’)

Carlota Garcia, flute, Izana Soria,violin, Edouard Catalan, cello, and Ganael Schneider, harpsichord, presented To Paris And Back: Return, a programme of 17th and 18th century works by Henri-Jacques de Croes, Jean-Marie Leclair and Georg Philipp Telemann.  

In 2018, they recorded their first album for Linn Records, La Sonate Égarée, an album dedicated to Henri-Jacques de Croes.

Izana Soria said of her fellow Belgian: “Born in Antwerp, de Croes was an important innovator of his time. He was maître de musiqueof the Chapelle Royale in Brussels and Frankfurt, and, like Telemann, able to synthesise the Italian, French and German styles in his sonatas and symphonies.

“The Largo of his sixth sonata has an operatic lyricism, whereas the Fuga combines markedly rhythmical passages, typically baroque dissonances and pre-classical articulations, with a polished and convincing result.”

Formed in Brussels in 2013, BarrocoTout take their name from a sketch on the Spanish comedy show Muchachada Nui: Barroco Tu (meaning “Baroque yourself”), and their mission is to explore work written for their four-piece formation by well-known composers, while also re-discovering other composers who have fallen into oblivion.