Jury 2024


RICHARD MAILAENDER – Germany

President of the Jury 2024

Jury 2024Richard Mailänder has been a professor at the University of Music and Dance in Cologne since 2000. From 1987 to August 2024, he was full-time Archdiocesan Church Music Director in the Archdiocese of Cologne and thus responsible for the work of around 850 church musicians (including around 250 full-time musicians) and over 40,000 choral singers. He taught choral conducting for over 30 years. From 1993 to 2003 he was chairman of the working group of the offices/departments for church music of the German dioceses. For the past two years, he has been 1st Vice President of the Allgemeiner Cäcilienverband Deutschlands, which represents over 300,000 choral singers. He has been the founder and director of the Figural Choir Cologne since 1986 and has given numerous performances of old and new music with this choir. Numerous compositions have been written for the choir, which has premiered them. The choir’s work has focused on the themes of Advent, Evensong and resurrection. To date, 12 CD recordings, which have been released on various labels, bear witness to his work with the choir. In addition, Mailänder has published numerous choir books with various music publishers (above all Carus), as well as textbooks, such as a method for sight-singing (Kölner Chorschule). Many essays on various musical topics have appeared in German and international publications. Another focus of his work is hymnology. He was head of the working group on hymns for the new Catholic hymnal of the German-speaking countries. He has been a member of the Ecumenical Hymnal Working Group since 2003.

 

FABIO PECCI – Italy

Member of the Jury 2024

Jury 2024

Fabio Pecci studied cello at the ‘G. Verdi’ Musical Institute in Ravenna. He has given hundreds of concerts as soloist and member of chamber and orchestral ensembles in Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Greece. He has received several prizes in national and international competitions and has recorded several CDs for Tactus, Bongiovanni and other independent labels. Since 1995, he has been teaching at schools in the province of Rimini and Pesaro/Urbino, overseeing musical projects for primary schools; his work with children has led to a passion for children’s choirs. He currently directs four children’s choirs and a youth choir with which he carries out an intense activity in Italy, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, the Republic of San Marino, and Lithuania, obtaining various prizes and awards in various national and international competitions, including 13 first prizes.  He is a teacher for the Children’s Choir and Musical Theory course at the Maderna-Lettimi Conservatory in Rimini. He has participated as a residential/laboratory choir in various International Competitions and Ateliers and has supervised the preparation of the treble voices in ‘Tosca’, ‘Bohème’ and ‘Carmen’ for numerous Italian theatres and opera houses, from 2012 to the present. In 2008, with the treble-voice choir ‘Le Allegre Note’, he took part in the production of Berlioz’s ‘Te Deum’ conducted by Maestro C. Abbado and broadcast on RAI 1 on Christmas Eve. With the same choir, he has performed C. Orff’s Carmina Burana several times with the Percussionists of Santa Cecilia in Rome and other ensembles, on several national tours. He has supervised world premieres of pieces by contemporary composers, some of which were also dedicated to his choirs: M. Da Rold, A. Basevi, M. Marchetti and M. Santoiemma. Lecturer for the FENIARCO ‘Spring Festival’ in Montecatini in 2016 and 2017, he regularly holds workshops and choral meetings for various choral associations: ACA Arborea, ASAC Veneto, Fersaco, Associazione Nazionale Direttori di coro italiani. A member of the jury in numerous competitions in Italy, Croatia, Lithuania, Slovakia, France and Belgium, he is artistic director of the ‘Città di Riccione’ Choral Competition for children’s voices.

 

SILVIA PERUCCHETTI – Italy

Member of the Jury 2024

Jury 2024

Silvia Perucchetti is a musicologist, librarian and musician. She graduated cum laude in Musicology in 2009 at the University of Pavia (Cremona branch), specialising with Rodobaldo Tibaldi in the study of sacred Renaissance polyphony of the Po Valley area. Since 2006 she has directed the choir of the Cappella Musicale San Francesco da Paola of Reggio Emilia, with which she mainly performs Renaissance polyphony, and since 2007 the Mavarta Choir of S. Ilario d’Enza (RE), which focuses on classical polyphony and spirituals. Director since 2023 of the four-monthly magazine FarCoro, she has published essays and musicological contributions, including the essay A piena voce: la vocalità della polifonia sacra tra Quattro e Cinquecento (in Voci e vocalità nella cultura occidentale, edited by C. Miatello and V. Confuorto, ed. Armando, 2024), the editing of the encyclopaedic entry Italy. Sacred music. The Seventeenth Century within the Orthodox Encyclopaedia (Moscow, 2012), catalogues of library collections she catalogued and essays dedicated to compositional techniques and performance practice of polyphony in the Renaissance and in the songs of soldiers of the Great War. Since 2019 she has been holding for AERCO – Associazione Emiliano-Romagnola Cori the annual course La polifonia rinascimentale in coro: teoria e pratica, dalle fonti antiche al cantar insieme, characterised by reading from original printed and manuscript sources, and regularly holds similar masterclasses in Italy and abroad (Malta, Rimini, Parma, Como). She is engaged in a long-term project of transcription and concert valorisation of the polyphonic repertoire preserved in libraries and archives in Emilia (from chant piano to Renaissance polyphony and chant fratto), and regularly writes musicological notes for CDs of ancient music, hall programmes and is intensively dedicated to music popularisation in lecture-concerts of her own devising, in particular on the topics of history, notation, iconography and performance practice of polyphony in the Renaissance, music and the visual arts (more than 25 original projects conducted together with art historian Silvia De Angelis), female composers, music and the Great War. She is a librarian at the Gentilucci Music Library of the Reggio Emilia Conservatory and catalogues ancient, manuscript and music collections in several cities in Emilia (including the Philharmonic Academy and Music Museum in Bologna, the Estense Library and the Historical Archives in Modena). She is also active as a photographer (she dedicates herself to documenting concerts, events and cultural heritage such as music manuscripts, prints and textiles; to photojournalism reports and to art photography).

 

TOMMYANTO KANDISAPUTRA – Indonesia

Member of the Jury 2024

Tommyanto Kandisaputra is the Founder and Artistic Director of Studio Cantorum Bandung Choir & Orchestra since 1991 and Bandung Choral Society which has been organizing concerts, choir training, competitions and Choir Symposiums since 2000. He is also the Artistic Director of the Bali International Choir Festival in Denpasar which is held annually successfully since 2012 until now. Previously, successfully held the North Sulawesi International Choir Competition 2008 in Manado, Tomohon International Choir Competition 2009 and 2010 in North Sulawesi, Rhapsodie Indonesia Choir Festival (2019), Jakarta World Choir Festival (2019) and Bandung Choral Festival in collaboration with Parahyangan University Bandung and the National Narcotics Agency of the Republic of Indonesia on 28-31 March 2022. Tommyanto has also been elected as a member of the World Choir Council and Leader of INTERKULTUR Indonesia since 2006 and has brought many Indonesian Choirs to perform on various international stages and competitions with great success.  Became Artistic Director of the 1st Asian Choir Games, November 2007, in Jakarta, and as a judge in World Choir Games in Xiamen-China 2006, Graz- Austria 2008, Shaozing-China 2010, Cincinnati-USA 2012. In 2014 he became the representative of Indonesia at “One Asia Cultural Ambassador” held by “The Music for One Foundation”, South Korea.  Then became the Conductor of the Taipei Philharmonic Youth Choir on May 4, 2016, performing at the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan.  He was a speaker at the Asian Pacific Children Choir Assembly in Okinawa, December 2016, and The Summer Academy of Lithuanian Conductors in Vilnius, Lithuania, August 2017. He was a judge at the Suwon Choral Festival and led a Workshop at the Jeju Senior Choir Festival – South Korea, the Claudio Monteverdi International Choral Festival in Venice, October 2019 and The Busan International Choral Festival in October 2022. He is a singing teacher and leads many Choir Development Programs for Singers and Conductors by doing seminars and workshops all over Indonesia.

 

DANIELE SCONOSCIUTO – Italy

Member of the Jury 2024

Born in Mesagne (BR) in 1983, Daniele Sconosciuto has lived in Bologna since 2002. He holds a diploma in piano from the Istituto Musicale Pareggiato ‘Giuseppe Verdi’ in Ravenna (2007), a degree in DAMS-Music from the University of Bologna (2009) with a thesis in Music Pedagogy (The music laboratory as a teaching strategy for deutero-learning), and is qualified to teach piano at the Conservatorio ‘Girolamo Frescobaldi’ in Ferrara (2010), graduated in Music Disciplines from the University of Bologna (2012) with a thesis in Musical Palaeography (The Antiphonary-Gradual of the ‘Alfredo Calabrese’ Private Library – Campi Salentina – LE), graduated in Orchestra Conducting (2020) at the Conservatory of Music ‘G. Verdi’ in Milan, where he studied with Maestros Vittorio Parisi (Conducting) and Marco Munari (Reading of the Score, Maestro Collaborator at the “Teatro alla Scala” in Milan). He graduated with top marks, honours and mention in Choral Conducting and Composition at the “Girolamo Frescobaldi” Conservatory in Ferrara. He has attended Masterclasses and Workshops in Orchestral and Choral Conducting in Italy and Europe to deepen his knowledge of the symphonic – opera – choral repertoire. He was didactic coordinator and member of the Board of Directors of the Association ‘Le Muse e il Tempo – Centro di formazione ricerca e didattica della musica’ (2006-2012, Bologna) and was consultant as assistant archivist for the reorganisation and cataloguing of the Orchestra Mozart’s musical materials (2013-2014, Bologna) under the artistic direction of Claudio Abbado. He performs an intense concert activity as pianist in chamber music ensembles, as collaborating maestro in opera choirs and as choir and orchestra conductor. He was a juror in the International Music Competition ‘Amigdala School’ (Catania) and has held workshops and conferences in Italy (Ferrara) and abroad (Malta) on the opera and contemporary choral repertoire. He is a piano teacher at the I.C. Granarolo dell’Emilia, organist at the Basilica dei Santi Bartolomeo e Gaetano in Bologna and choir director at the Centro Culturale ‘L’Arengo’ in Bologna. He teaches Score Reading and Sung Reading in AERCO Academy courses and is a member of the Board of Directors and Provincial Delegate of AERCO for the province of Bologna (Associazione Emiliano Romagnola COri). Since 2018 he has been the artistic and organisational director of the International Choral Festival CantaBO and since 2022 he has been the Director of the Coro Giovanile dell’Emilia-Romagna (Emilia-Romagna Youth Choir), a transversal and at the same time unique project in the Emilia-Romagna region as it welcomes young choristers from all over Emilia-Romagna who are already part of AERCO member choirs and who feel the need to enrich their choral experience by sharing with other young people the study and expansion of the repertoire with a view to personal and group growth. With the Youth Choir of Emilia-Romagna, he performed at the AERCO Regional Assemblies in Ferrara and Reggio-Emilia and at the ‘Gaudeamus in Musica’ festival (Parma). In 2022 the Choir was also the ‘laboratory choir’ in the Masterclass held in Parma by Maestro John Rutter. In the same year, the Choir was selected to participate in the Choral Competition ‘Voci d’Italia’ and was commissioned to perform the finalist pieces in the ‘Pier Paolo Pasolini’ Composition Competition organised by the ‘G. e A. Giovannini’ Foundation of Reggio Emilia. In 2023 the Choir was invited to perform in the Cathedral of Valletta (Malta) and in the ‘Giugno Musicale’ Festival in Montecchio Emilia. Numerous musical encounters have also been organised with youth choirs from the region, both Italian and international.