Grieg International Choir Competition

JURY 2024

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Bernie Sherlock – Ireland
Bernie Sherlock is a leading choral conductor. Her ongoing work as an international adjudicator and director of choral workshops has taken her around Europe and to the US, Canada and China. She also travels to give concerts at the invitation of international festivals. Bernie is the founder-conductor of the international award-winning chamber choir New Dublin Voices, critically acclaimed for its innovative concert programming and its work in television, radio and recording.  Bernie has extensive experience directing a wide range of choirs, including twelve years as Musical Director of the Culwick Choral Society, nine years as conductor of the University of Dublin Choral Society (Trinity College), and ten years as Choral Director at the TU Dublin Conservatoire where she is a Lecturer in Music and where she is currently conductor of the TU Chamber Choir and Youth Choir. In 2020 she was appointed Artistic Director of the Irish Youth Choirs and she is second conductor of EuroChoir 2021. She is the representative for Ireland on the World Choir Council.

Jürgen Budday – Germany
Jürgen Budday was artistic director and founder of the Maulbronn Chamber Choir until 2016, with whom he won several prices in national and international competitions. Since 1979 he worked up the Maulbronn Monastery Concerts as artistic director and he held this position until 2013. In 1998 he was awarded the “Bundesverdienstkreuz” (German Cross of Merit). From 2002 until 2019 he has also held the chair of the Choral Committee with the German Music Council and was the head of the jury of the German Choir Competition. 2011 he was awarded Professor by the Minister President of Baden-Württemberg and 2013 he was honored by the Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Ring. 2014 he was called as artistic director of the International Chamber Choir Competition in Marktoberdorf. Jürgen Budday initialized a cycle of Handel oratorios over a several years that involved working with soloists like Emma Kirkby, Michael Chance, Nancy Argenta and Mark Le Brocq (to name but a few). The live recordings of these performances, that have received the highest praise from reviewers, has won him international recognition. Since 2019 he holds the chair of the board of the recently founded National Youth Choir of Germany. Beyond that he is the Senior Advisor of the Advisory Board of the World Choir Council.

Karmina Šilec – Slovenia
Karmina Šilec is a conductor, theatre director-author and composer. She creates projects with various companies, opera and drama houses, festivals and ensembles worldwide. Renowned for her original and research-oriented approach, Karmina has brought freshness to the music and theatre world. Her projects have been granted with major international awards in the fields, including the International Robert Edler Prize (2004) for her contribution to the world choral movement, Music Theatre Now awards for Threnos (2021) and From Time Immemorial… (2008), International award Darinka Matić Marović for outstanding contribution to music art (2023), and more than 20 highest international awards at choir competitions. Her projects have been performed on stages and festivals of the highest esteem.
She also works as an artistic adviser for choral music, university professor for conducting, a guest conductor and jury member at festivals and competitions, among them the prestigious Eric Ericson competition for choral conductors, Matej Hubad conductors’ competition, several Grand Prix Europe competitions, International competition Gallus, etc.

Katalin Kiss – Hungary
Dr. Katalin Kiss, a worldwide experienced choral conductor and music educator graduated and obtained her doctoral degree in performing arts from the Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, Hungary. She had been lecturing between 1989 and 2019 at the Kodály Institute of Liszt Academy of Music, where she served as Deputy Director-General in 2002-04. Since 2015, she is a guest professor at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. In addition, she lectures, and holds workshops regularly at music symposia and seminars in Europe, Australia, in China and in the USA. Dr. Katalin Kiss founded the Ars Nova Vocal Ensemble in 1990 and has given hundreds of concerts around the world, winning sixteen first prizes and special prizes and seven Grand Prix-s at international competitions. With Ars Nova she has premièred, and recorded a great number of contemporary choral pieces, many of them dedicated to her and her ensemble. She is representative of Hungary in the World Choir Council, a founding member and continental ambassador of Europe of the International Choral Conductors’ Federation.

Øystein Fevang – Norway
Øystein Fevang is a Norwegian choir conductor, singer and musician. Since 2006 he has been conductor and artistic director of the Oslo Philharmonic Choir. He studied singing and conducting at the music conservatory in Oslo and at the Norwegian Academy of Music.
Fevang conducted the chamber choir Ensemble 96 from 1996–2006. For the CD «Immortal Nystedt» with chamber choir Ensemble 96, Øystein Fevang was nominated for Grammy Awards in 2007, and received The Norwegian Choir Association’s Choral Award the same year.
Fevang is a very versatile musician, which include himself at the helm of his own tribute projects to Queen, Genesis and Elton John.
Since 2006 he has been lecturer at Rud senior high school, and his «first day of school-video» where he and his students spontaneously performed Queen’s «Bohemian Rhapsody» went viral and has more than 25 million views on social media.