For a ten days, from April 8th to April 17th, 2019, the 4th international woodwind and brass competition “Varaždin Woodwind & Brass” and “Woodwind & Brass Grand Prix” was held at the Music School in Varaždin, and if we turn the days into hours, it’s about 130 hours of quality music performed in the big and small Concert Hall of the Music School in Varaždin.

In that period, 600 registered candidates from 9 countries: Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Germany and Slovakia have been presented in 10 disciplines: flute, clarinet, saxophone, oboe, bassoon, trumpet, horn, and euphonium.

The jury made up of eminent experts and music pedagogues from different countries of the world had a demanding job of evaluating and selecting the best candidates.

Flute:
Carlo Jans (Luxembourg)
Milena Lipovšek (Slovenia)
Marina Novak (Croatia)

Clarinet:
Tadej Kenig (Slovenia)
Gábor Varga (Hungary)
Radovan Cavallin (Croatia / Spain)

Saxophone:
Miha Rogina (Slovenia)
Nikola Fabijanić (Croatia)
Jean-Yves Fourmeau (France)

Oboe and bassoon:
Branko Mihanovic (Croatia)
Sanja Romić (Serbia)
Mykhaylo Kraynyk (Ukraine / Croatia)

Trumpet:
Marin Zokić (Croatia)
Stanko Arnold (Slovenia)
Dario Teskera (Croatia)

Horn:
Boštjan Lipovšek (Slovenia)
Stanko Arnold (Slovenia)
Marin Zokić (Croatia)

Trombones, Tubes and Euphonium:
Dušan Kranjc (Slovenia)
Danijel Rajković (Croatia)
Adrian France (United Kingdom)

Stefan Konzett – Grand Prix (Austria)

At the final concert and Awards evening the following candidates performed: laureate of the contest Jan Mojzeš on the trumpet from the Elly Bašić Music Institute from Zagreb (Croatia), Matej Štih on the trombone from the Conservatoire for music and ballet in Ljubljana (Slovenia) – 3rd prize, Iva Primorac on flute from the Music Academy of the University of Zagreb (Croatia) – 2nd prize and Katarina Slavkovska from the Janáčkova Akademie múzických umění from Brno (Slovakia) – 1st prize.

This year’s 4th international competition “Varaždin Woodwind & Brass” was sponsored by Euro-Unit and Yamaha Music Europe with the awards: Yamaha clarinet YCL-255S, Yamaha trumpet YTR-2330 and Yamaha flute YFL-212.