Grieg International Choir Competition
JURY 2024
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. He has been the conductor and artistic director of the Oslo Philharmonic Choir since 2006. He studied singing and conducting at the Norwegian Academy of Music.
Fevang conducted the chamber choir Ensemble 96 from 1996 to 2006. For the CD “Immortal Nystedt” with Ensemble 96, he was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2007 and received the Norwegian Choir Association’s Choral Award.
Fevang is a versatile musician, leading his own Queen, Genesis, and Elton John tribute projects. He has also been a lecturer at Rud Senior High School since 2006. His “first day of school” video, where he and his students spontaneously performed Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” went viral and has garnered over 30 million views on social media.
NINA Solo Competition – for young voices
JURY 2024
Iano Tamar, Italy/Georgia
Iano Tamar is a Georgian soprano who studied at the Tblisi Conservatory and in Italy. Her remarkable debut at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro in the role of Semiramide brought her to La Scala in Milan, where she sang Lina in Verdi’s Stiffelio, Alice in Falstaff, and Lady Macbeth – all under the direction of Riccardo Muti.
This was the start of an international career that later brought her to the Vienna State Opera where she received very good reviews for her role as Elisabeth in a new production of Verdi’s Don Carlos, Mathilde in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell and the title role in Cherubino’s Medea. Later followed outstanding reviews for roles at Covent Garden, Teatro la Fenice, in Geneve, at the Bregenz Festival and Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, and a number of other large stages in Europe. Iano Tamar is also a sought-after educator who has taught master classes at Accademia Malibran in Italy, the University of Music and Performing Arts in Changsha (China), Tbilisi Conservatory of Music in Georgia, Tokyo New National Theatre in Japan and at Istituto Musicale Gaspare Spontini in Ascoli Picena (Italy). Furthermore, she contributed to many recordings, for example of Verdi’s The Troubadour at BBC Opus Arte, Verdi’s Don Carlos at TDK and Orfeo D’or and Medea at Nuovo Era.
Klemens Sander, Austria
The Upper Austria native and St. Florianer boys choir alumnus Klemens Sander studied vocal performance at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Helena Lazarska and Robert Holl.
His broad career led him to the Vienna Volksoper and Theater an der Wien, the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Luxembourg’s Grand Theatre, the Opéra de Dijon, the Operas in Limoges, Caen, Chemnitz and Leipzig as well as Neue Oper Wien and the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, singing lead roles including Onegin, Papageno, Don Giovanni, Belcore, Silvio, Marcello, Graf Almaviva, Harlekin, Falke, Orest, Donner and Escamillo.
In addition, the baritone is a frequent guest and recitalist in halls and festivals including the Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus, the Salzburger Festspiele, the Grafenegg Festival, the Chamber Music Festival in Lockenhaus, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Oxford Lieder Festival, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the St. Peterburg Philharmonie, Beethovenfest in Warsaw, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Wiener Festwochen, London’s Wigmore Hall and at the Philharmonie in both Berlin and Paris.
Parallel to his performance career, Klemens Sander is a sought-after voice teacher, juror at international competitions and lecturer for master classes (e.g. New England Conservatory Boston, University of Cartagena/ Colombia). After commitments as a voice lecturer at the Vienna University of Music and as a professor at the Dresden University of Music, Klemens Sander has been appointed professor at the vocal faculty of the Detmold University of Music from 2022.
Toril Carlsen, Norway
Toril Carlsen began her professional career early and was hired as a soloist at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet in 1979, 21 years old. The Norwegian Opera was her main venue for over 30 years, in addition to guest performances at several other opera houses. Her repertoire includes opera, church music, romances and contemporary music.Toril Carlsen graduated from the National Academy of Opera, studying under Jartrud Ringdal, Ingrid Bjoner, Jenö Sipos and Eva Blahová.Over the span of her career, primarily at the Norwegian Opera in Oslo, Toril Carlsen has sung over 75 highly diverse roles, and this versatility has been her hallmark. She has performed as a soloist with Norway’s various symphony orchestras, sung at the district operas and held concerts all over Norway. She has also performed and held concerts throughout Europe, and was for example under contract as a guest performer at the Staatsoper in Berlin. She has premiered Norwegian music, whether opera or chamber music, and has made several recordings. Toril Carlsen has also received numerous awards. Toril Carlsen is also professor at Oslo National Academy of the Arts / Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo (KHiO).
PIANIST
Vyara Shuperlieva, Bulgaria
Vyara Shuperlieva graduated master degree from the National Musical Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 1986, she accepted the position of vocal coach in the National Opera in Sofia, Bulgaria. Between 1991-1994, she was an accompanist in the Academia Di Canto Boris Christov, in Rome. Vyara Shuperlieva is a permanent accompanist of the Boris Christov Competition(Sofia), where she has received an award for the best accompanist. Shuperlieva played for recitals with Andrea Rost in the theatre “La Monet” ,”Auditorium” Leon and “Sala Joaquin Turina” Sevilla, as well as with Darina Takova and Kiril Manolov, amongst others.
She has worked as a vocal coach in the opera productions of Opera Thesaloniki, Festival Classic Openair, Solothourn (Switzerland), Festival Operosa (Bulgaria), Cyprus Opera Organisation (Cyprus), Opera-Bergen (Norway), Salzburg Festspiele(Austria).Recently, Vyara Shuperlieva has been appointed to the position of a vocal coach in Mozarteum University, Salzburg, Austria.