Belarusian Vital Aleksiayonak has won the International Competition of Conductors named after Arturo Toscanini, according to the official website of the competition. He also won the Audience Award.
The competition was held in the Italian city of Parma.
Second place went to Ukrainian Oleksandr Yankevich, with Felix Hornbahner of Austria coming in third.
The Toscanini International Conducting Competition was held for the eleventh time this year. The winners are selected by an international jury involving directors and artistic directors of the world’s biggest opera houses.
Vital is 29 years old and was born in Vileyka. He studied at the St Petersburg State Conservatoire under Alexander Alexeyev and at the Higher School of Music in Weimar, Germany. He also studied with renowned conductors. He is currently Principal Conductor of the Munich University Orchestra.
Last year, in a podcast to a German publication, Vital expressed his position on not recognizing Lukashenka as a legitimate president after the 2020 elections and supported peaceful post-election protests, during which he himself was in Minsk.
“We’re all scared or worried here. But what can we do? We have to fight somehow. And we have to stay strong,” Aleksiayonak said of the Belarusian protests.
