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By Kevin Shihoten
15 Jun 2007
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The inaugural edition of the Stradivarius International Violin Competition came to its conclusion last night at Gardner Hall in Salt Lake City.
25-year-old Yooshin Song of South Korea took first prize; her winnings include $10,000 in cash, a solo appearance with the Utah Symphony and a violin made by luthier Charles W. Liu, founder and organizer of the competition. The $5,000 second prize went to 19-year-old Andrej Power of Sweden; 20-year-old Sharon Park of California took the $2,500 third prize. Fourth and fifth prizes went to American Susan Jang and Korean So Jin Kim, respectively.
Runner-up Power so impressed judges that the Utah Symphony offered him a 2008 engagement as well.
"I think we had a very successful competition," Liu told PlaybillArts by phone this morning.
Held over four days at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, the SIVC also featured a youth division for children ages 10 - 16. The event is the first international violin competition to be named for a violin-maker, Liu told the Deseret Morning News last week.
A native of China who studied violin as a child, Liu switched his focus to violin-making in his teens, when he entered Beijing Technical School. Further study with Peter Paul Prier brought him to Utah's Violin Making School of America, the first school of its kind established in the U.S. Liu opened his own shop in 2004, and has since gained national recognition selling, renting and repairing stringed instruments.
Until this year, the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation held Utah's sole international music contest.
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