Life as a young musician in the classical music world can be tough going. Years of training and hard work, exams, masterclasses and concert performances, all with exacting standards. Competitions, especially, can be tricky to navigate as a young musicians.
Competitions have long been a key component of the classical music world, but with an increasing proliferation of events, it can be hard for young musicians to use competitions as a launching pad even if they do have success. The European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY) is a network of around 50 national and international music competitions, which coordinate together with the hope of doing just this – creating opportunities for young, award-winning musicians on the path to professional careers.
In particular, EMCY is particularly committed to working across national boundaries within the European Union, including Ukraine. Last month saw EMCY’s latest performance project for competition winners, Young Hearts for Music Tour 2025, which brought together musicians for concerts across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This new piano trio – Rokas Diržys (Violin, Lithuania), András Lakatos (piano, Hungary), Syon Najman (cello, Belgium) – comprises competition winners from recent events across Europe, including International Robert Schumann Piano Competition Düsseldorf 2025, where Lakatos won first prize (the other musicians all won first prizes at competitions in Lithuania and Czechia). Performing an eclectic mix of 19th- and 20th-century music, including Kodaly, Nadia Boulanger, Scriabin and Waxman, this new piano trio showed firm commitment to a breadth of repertoire.
Indeed EMCY’s performance projects as part of the BRAND New scheme frequently have a commitment to unusual presentation, often in memorable or testing circumstances. Standout amongst these projects was the Glowing Harp Festival in Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Lviv, in mid-September 2024. In the midst of a hugely difficult situation for Ukrainian musicians, newly commissioned work for harp and electronics were presented, together with lectures and workshops from musicians from around the world – calling in remotely. Remarkably, concerts in Kharkiv and Kyiv were held in bomb shelters, and performances in Lviv were interrupted by air raid sirens.
With seven Ukrainian harp players, as well as four other musicians featured over five days, a highlight of the concerts was an arrangement of the Ukrainian song Moon Night by Czech composer Jiří Trtik, part of the faculty of the International Conservatory of Prague. Ukrainian composer Evgen Andreev was also commissioned to write a new piece for harp and audio track. (The earlier 2023 Glowing Harp Festival also featured Ukrainian musicians, taking place in Zagreb, Croatia. It also presented new works for harp and electronics, with composers visiting from Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the UK.)
Also in September 2024, EMCY spearheaded important outreach across the continent by bringing a group of young Ukrainian musicians to Lithuania for the Peace-Music-Freedom International Masterclasses and Concerts. Several undergraduate-age young musicians from around Europe were joined by 43 young music students, unable to leave Ukraine until 2024. Together they participated in workshops led by teachers from the UK, Switzerland and Lithuania, accompanied by 10 teachers from Kharkiv State Music Lyceum. After workshops and cultural exchange at the Arts Education Centre in Kunigiškės, on the scenic Lithuanian coast, concerts were held in Palanga and Klaipeda.
Throughout the last five years, EMCY’s BRAND New project found ways for young musicians from across Europe to perform in different scenarios and locations, with workshops dedicated to integrating performance with new technologies, audience engagement, live-streaming and broadcasting, and creative outreach. In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, these concerns became all the more acute. From outdoor performance at the Detect Classic Festival 2021, where young musicians performed Claude Vivier’s Palau Dewata (“The Island of the Gods”) for a reclining audience, to flashmob performances in the Vienna MuseumsQuatier as part of Young Digital Classic 2022.
As well as outdoor and occasional performance scenarios, the BRAND New projects also encompassed video broadcast performance: in collaboration with Luxembourg’s UGDA Music School, “Drumming in the Living Room” presented a range of percussion ensemble repertoire for a new group of talented young percussionists drawn from across Eureope. John Cage’s rarely performed Child of Tree utilises amplified plant materials – notably cactuses. It was combined with Cage’s other pioneering percussion work Living Room Music, presented together with Steve Reich’s classic Drumming.
With 15 national and 28 international competitions now part of the EMCY network, maintaining connections between young musicians from across Europe is a priority, especially with borders being increasingly raised between European nation states. Taken together, EMCY’s BRAND New performance projects have visibly responded to the huge challenges facing young musicians in the decade of the 2020s, be it the disruptions of Coronavirus, which reduced possibilities for indoor performance and rehearsal – or the war in Ukraine, which continues to tragically impact the lives of Ukrainian musicians.
See more about EMCY’s BRAND New projects.
Official homepage of European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY).
BRAND New project is co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union.
This article was sponsored by Creative Europe and the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth.
