International Organ Competition Mainz announces 2010 winners

The International Organ Competition Mainz has announced its 2010 winners.



During a total of three rounds of the competition, Balthasar Baumgartner (Cologne) received the first prize (€8,000). He also won the prize (€1,000) for the best interpretation of Zwischenwelten (“Between Worlds”) by Dominik Susteck. This two-movement piece for organ and brass sextet won the composition competition “Organ Plus” last spring.



Baumgartner studied organ and sacred music at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg and at the Musikhochschule in Munich. He is a scholarship holder of the German Music Competition 2008 in Bonn and recipient of the August Everding Music Competition in Munich.



Second prize (€4,000) went to Mari Ohki (Tokyo); Berthold Labuda (Berlin) received third prize (€2,000). Baumgartner, Ohki, and Labuda also received the chance to play a concert at the XX International Organ Festival of Rhineland-Palatinate.



Sixty-six young organists from all over Europe, the U.S., South Korea, and Japan entered the organ competition. Twenty-four candidates qualified to participate through a pre-selection.



The organ competition was held at the new Goll organ of the Hochschule für Musik, Mainz, and at the Cavaillé-Coll organ of St. Bernard in Mainz-Bretzenheim.



The jury included Guy Bovet, Bjorn Boysen, Emmanuel Le Divellec, Hans Fagius, Jacques van Oortmerssen,
Klemens Schnorr, and Jozef Serafin.