Giuseppe Mengoli wins Mahler Conducting Competition

Bamberg Symphony Orchestra’s Mahler Conducting Competition has announced Giuseppe Mengoli as its 2023 winner. The Italian conductor receives a cash prize of €30,000, while second prize winner, Japanese-American conductor Taichi Fukumura receives €20,000 euros and Georg Köhler from Germany wins the competition’s third prize of €10,000.

Prizes were awarded at the competition final which took place in Bamberg yesterday and marked the culmination of a week of competition rounds. The 2023 edition also introduced the competition’s first Best Conducting of Contemporary Composition prize, worth €7,500, which was awarded to American competitor Kevin Fitzgerald.

Jakub Hrůša, jury president and principal conductor of the Bamberg Orchestra, said about Mengoli’s performance in the competition: ‘A totally convincing performance throughout the rounds with a perfect combination of knowledge of the score and an extraordinarily natural feeling of music… He possesses a strong ability to inspire the musicians and the audience alike through his musical language which speaks directly to everyone’s hearts.’

The competition repertoire was focused on Gustav Mahler's 7th Symphony, from which different movements were played in each round alongside other works including Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Con Moto, a new commission by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra which received its world premiere in the second round.

Mengoli’s recent experience includes a period as assistant conductor to Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti at the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands National Opera as well as assisting the artistic team of the Orchestre National de France in its new production of La Bohème at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. He has also assisted conductors including Oleg Caetani, John Axelrod, Daniel Barenboim and Christoph König.

The winners were chosen by a jury of 15 experts (pictured below) led by Hrůša including Bamburg Symphony Orchestra president and CEO Marcus Rudolf Axt and second concertmaster Mayra Budagjan as well as soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan, violinist and conductor John Storgårds and former managing director of the Berlin Philharmonic, Pamela Rosenberg, as well as conductors Juanjo Mena, John Carewe and Mark Stringer. Composer Miroslav Srnka will also be on the jury alongside president of the New York Philharmonic, Deborah Borda; director of the Ojai Music Festival, Ara Guzelimian, and competition patron Marina Mahler.

©Marian Lenhard

Baritone Thomas Hampson was also a member of the Jury and will perform alongside Mengoli in the final concert of this year’s competition competition, which will take place tomorrow (15 July).