ZBOROVSTVO

10. INTERNATIONAL CHORAL COMPETITION
MARIBOR 2009, SLOVENIA

Maribor, 17.-19. April 2009

JURY

Anders Eby - President

Anders Eby

The Swedish conductor Anders Eby studied at the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm during the years 1972-1977, and finished his exam as a church musician, with choral conducting under Eric Ericson. He followed further studies in mostly orchestral conducting in Italy, France and the USA.

Since 1972 he is a church musician with a responsibility for the choirs in the St. Johannes church in the centre of Stockholm. Already earlier he had founded the Mikaeli Kammarkör. With the choir he has made numerous tours all over the world and also a lot of recordings for the radio, television and gramophone. Typical of the Mikaeli Kammarkör has been the musical broadness. Their repertoire consists of music of all styles and genres: a cappella, works with orchestra, musical drama and more. The repertoire has mostly been pointed to the large contemporary a cappella works.

Anders Eby has through the years been regularly sought after as a teacher of choral conducting at different colleges of music, at special courses on all levels in Sweden as well as abroad and also as a juror at international festivals and competitions.
Besides all the different tasks as a guest conductor, he hasearlier been the artistic director for the Johannes Youth Choir (1977-1987), The Academic Chamber Choir of Uppsala (1974-1983) and Pro Coro Canada (1988-1992).

Since 1994 Anders Eby is the professor of choral conducting and choral singing at the Royal University College of Music (KungligaMusikhögskolan) in Stockholm. Apart from the overall responsibility for the institution for the choir, his main task is with the post graduate classes in conducting (the 3 year education programme) and the choral conducting diploma class ( the 2 years education programme). In addition to that, he is the leader of the Chamber Choir of the Royal University College of Music (Kungliga Musikhögskolans Kammarkör).

Valérie Fayet

Valérie Fayet

Valérie Fayet graduated in choral conducting at the Conservatoire in Lyon. She was a scholar of the Menuhin Foundation and completed her studies in orchestral conducting in 1987. In 1991 she won the first prize with the Girls' Choir from Mans at the International Choral Competition Florilčge Vocal de Tours.

Valérie Fayet was the assistant conductor with Bernard Tétu at the Conservatoire in Lyon and the artistic director of the Chamber Choir from Caen. In September 2004 she took over the position of the professor of choral singing,choral conducting and the artistic director of the Symphonic orchestra at the Conservatoire in Nantes. She also conducts the professional vocal ensemble Humana Vox. Her repertoire consists of works such as Cantigas (Ohana), Stabat mater (Poulenc), Lazare and the Resurrection (Schubert), Requiem (Mozart) and Die Schöpfung (Haydn).

During the years 2005 and 2008 she was the artistic leader of the National Choir À Coeur Joie,with whom she won 6 prizes at the International Choral Competition Guido d'Arezzo in Italy in 2007,including the award for the best conductor.

Stojan Kuret

Stojan Kuret

Stojan Kuret received his degree in conducting from the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, and completed his piano studies at the G. Tartini Conservatory in Trieste. Since 1983 he has held the position of professor at the same Conservatory.

While still a student (1974), he conducted children, youth, female and mixed choirs. He was a guest conductor of several orchestras. With the 1992/93 season he became the artistic director and conductor of Akademski pevski zbor Tone Tomšič (the choir of the University of Ljubljana) until 2002. He achieved great international success with every choral pursuit (GP in Tours, Varna and Gorizia, finalist of the European GP 2000 in Tolosa, finalist in Let the Peoples Sing 2001, GP Maribor and winner of the European GP of Choral Singing 2002 in Arezzo).

From 2003 to 2005 he was the conductor of Chamber choir of RTV Slovenia in Ljubljana and from the season 2007 he is the conductor of the Italian Youth Choir (Coro Giovanile Italiano).

In the last two seassons as a guest conductor with the vocal group Čarnice he recorded and performed the entire opus of children songs by Marij Kogoj and many other Slovene contemporary compositions for female choir and new arrangements of Slovene folk songs for female choir by Ambrož Čopi.

Urša Lah

Urša Lah

Urša Lah studied musical education at the Ljubljana Music Academy. She perfected her conducting skills in Tromsř, Norway with Professor Ragnar Rasmussen and at seminars organised by IFCM and Europa Cantat.

She was a member of some of Slovenia's best vocal ensembles among them the Slovenian Chamber Choir.

Since 1993 she has been the conductor of the Mixed Youth Choir Veter, winning many Gold Plaques, First Prizes and special prizes at various competitions (Zagorje, Celje/Slovenia, Neerpelt, Cork, Budapest, Lindenholzhausen, Pohlheim, Preveza). In Pohlheim and Preveza, she also received the "Best Conductor" award.

With the National Radio Chamber Choir she conducted several first performances of works by contemporary Slovene composers, enriched the archive with recordings of works by Slovene and foreign composers of the 20th century and prepared many vocal-instrumental projects (1998-2002).

In 2002/2003 she took over the artistic leadership of the Academic Choir Tone Tomšič with which she won several First Prizes, Grand Prix awards and Conductors' awards (Tampere, Cantonigros, Varna, Gorizia). In March 2008 the choir won the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing.

Urša Lah is a lecturer on seminars for education of choir conductors and a member of juries at home and abroad. She is a co-founder of the Singing School for Choral Singers where she is also a teacher.

The Association of cultural societies Ljubljana awarded Urša Lah with a silver medal for creative artistic leadership of the Mixed Youth Choir Veter. In the year 2008 she received the prestigious award of the City of Ljubljana for cultural achievements of the highest rank, the Župančič Award.

Máté Szabó Sipos

Máté Szabó Sipos

Máté Szabó Sipos was born in Budapest and began his musical studies as a pianist. He received a degree with honour at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest as a choirmaster in 1990 and as an orchestra conductor in 1995.

From the years1994 to 2004 he worked as a teacher of conducting practice at Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. In 1995 he was appointed the chief conductor ofEger Symphony Orchestra and for three years he was the artistic leader of Kodály Choir Debrecen.
He was a member of the Artistic Committee of the Béla Bartók International Choral Competition in Debrecen in 2000.

Since 2003 he has been the chorus master and the conductor of theHungarian National Opera Budapest. As a guest conductor he has worked in several countries across the world and held master classes. He is also a frequent member of the jury at international choral competitions.