Around the Music Festival

The final round of the 14th Guido Cantelli International Conducting Competition (Premio Cantelli) took place on October 3 at the Teatro Coccia in Novara, Italy, with 25-year-old Feifan Jiang from China winning first prize. Yuta Kobayashi of Japan took second place, and Mauro Mariani of Italy placed third.

The competition was established in 1961 to honor Guido Cantelli, who died in a plane crash in 1956 shortly after being appointed music director of La Scala in Milan at the young age of 36. Past winners include Eliahu Inbal (1963), Riccardo Muti (1967), and Michiyoshi Inoue (1971).

After a hiatus of approximately 40 years, the competition was revived in 2020; this edition—marking the 70th anniversary of Cantelli’s death—attracted applications from around 200 conductors across 42 countries.

Donato Renzetti, winner of the 10th competition in 1980, served as the chairman of the jury. The four finalists conducted the Milan Symphony Orchestra during the final round held at the Teatro Coccia in Novara. In the final, Mariani conducted the first and second movements of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, Zhan conducted the third and fourth movements, and Kobayashi conducted Richard Strauss’s tone poem 《Don Juan》.

Zhan is currently a doctoral student at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and serves as the resident conductor of the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra; he has studied under mentors such as Jorma Panula and Markus Stenz. In 2024, he was selected as one of four young conductors to participate in the first “Italian Opera Academy” held in China by Riccardo Muti.

Kobayashi, 29, is a native of Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture. He entered the conducting program at Tokyo College of Music as a scholarship student, studying under mentors such as Junichi Hirokami and Tatsuya Shimono. He has served as an assistant conductor for the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra. Mariani, 33, won second prize (with no first prize awarded) at the 3rd Hiroshima International Conducting Competition this past August.

PHOTO：Premio Cantelli　/　Mario Finotti


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