Stunning First Night at the Geneva Competition Finals

Concours de Geneve- Cello Finals

On 27 October 1919, at the end of the First World War, the premiere of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the cellist Felix Salmond turned out to be a disaster, as the London Symphony apparently did not have enough rehearsal time. The work sadly became Elgar´s last completed work, and it remained unpopular until the twenty-year old Jacqueline du Pré recorded it with Sir John Barbirolli in 1965. She set a standard that everyone refers to even today.
At the 2021 Geneva Competition Cello Final, not one but two cellists performed the piece. They could not have been more different... yet each of them was outstanding in their own way. 15 year old Jaemin Han from South Korea began the evening with a breathtaking performance and a musicality and perfection that was exceptional for his age. The other one, Bryan Cheng (24, Canada) delivered a faultless and intoxicating concerto on his 1696 Stradivari that set another climax in this final. But the real sensation of the evening proved to be Japanese cellist Michiaki Ueno, 25, who presented a work otherwise known as bulky, complex and anything but easy listening: the 1970 concerto by Witold Lutoslawski. Ueno, 2nd Prize winner of the Lutoslawsky Competition in Warsaw 2018, gave a truly exciting and almost overwhelming performance, which in the end won him first prize.