JURY
5th year (2025)
Dalibor Karvay
The Slovak violinist Dalibor Karvay started playing the violin at the age of three under the guidance of his father. His grasp of the instrument led him to make several recordings for the Slovak Radio in Bratislava during his studies at the Primary Art School in Vrútky. After graduating from the Žilina Conservatory, where he studied under prof. Bohumil Urban, he embarked on a course of study at the Vienna Conservatory in the class of the renowned professor Boris Kuschnir.Some of Dalibor Karvay’s biggest competition successes include winning the Young Musicians meeting in Córdoba in 1996, receiving the Eurovision Grand Prix – Young Musician of the Year in 2002, the first prize at the Tibor Varga competition in 2003, the “New Talent” award at the International Tribute of Young Interpreters in 2005, as well as his victory at the David Oistrakh competition in Moscow in 2008. His prestigious concert for Prince Charles of Wales at the Windsor Castle in 2003 together with Mstislav Rostropovich is testament to his outstanding early musical achievement. Karvay graciously accepted repeated invitations to the Seiji Ozawa International Academy in Switzerland and was granted the Young Creator Award in the music category by the Tatra Bank Foundation in Slovakia. In 2009, the Slovak Republic awarded Karvay the Prize of the Minister of Culture for his exceptional artistic performance and successful international representation of Slovak interpretive art.As a soloist, Dalibor Karvay has worked with many renowned conductors including Leif Segerstam, Ion Marin, Hiroyuki Iwaki, Jaap van Zweden, Marek Janowski, Alexander Rahbari, Benjamin Wallfisch, Ondrej Lenárd, Oliver Dohnányi, etc. His cooperation with orchestras also makes for an impressive list: the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the National Theatre Orchestra Mannheim, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, the Het Gelders Orkest, the Solistes Européens Luxembourg, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphonic Orchestra of the Slovak Radio, the State Chamber Orchestra of Žilina etc. As a chamber musician, Karvay has collaborated with excellent international musicians including Radek Baborák, Julian Rachlin, Wenzel Fuchs, Boris Kuschnir, Magda Amara, Stefan Stroissnig and Daniel Buranovsky among others.Karvay’s long and devoted quest for his ideal violin was documented in the international film “Stradivari – Search for Perfection”, released in 2004.Next to his active concert career, Karvay has been a violin professor at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna since 2014. Dalibor Karvay won his audition for the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 2020 and was appointed first concert master. For the orchestra’s “living room concert” during the Covid-19 pandemic, Karvay also performed Camille Saint-Saëns’ Introduction et Rondo capriccioso as a soloist with his home orchestra, demonstrating both his skill as a concert master and his primary devotion to solo performance. Dalibor violin is Antonio Stradivari, Cremona 1694, „ex Benecke“, on loan from the Oesterreichischen Nationalbank.
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Birgit Kolar
Born in 1970 in Waidhofen/Ybbs (Austria) where, at the age of six, she began to study the violin at the local music school. From 1982 she studied at the University of Music in Vienna with the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Rainer Küchl and his assistant teacher Jela Spitkova. She continued her studies with Wolfgang Schneiderhan in Lucerne, Robert Masters in London and Josef Luitz in Vienna. From 1999-2008 Birgit Kolar played together with members of the “Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks” as a 1st violinist at the “Münchner Streichquartett”. As a soloist and chamber musician she performed all over Europe, Japan and South America. Birgit Kolar was a.o. concertmaster from Vienna Symphony Orchestra from 1994-1996. Since than she has been playing as a guest concertmaster in several European orchestras like the Bavarian State Orchestra (Munich State Opera), the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, etc. and was as well regularly invited from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2003 – 2009 she was an assistant-teacher at the University for Music in Vienna, in the year 2011 she was guest professor at the Kunstuniversität Graz. Birgit Kolar plays a violin Carlo Bergonzi, Cremona 1723 from the “collection of rare instruments” owned by the National Bank of Austria.
Peter Strenáčik
Peter Strenáčik was born in Lučenec. He studied violin at the Conservatory in Košice in the class of Koloman Takács. After graduation, he continued his studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. His pedagogues were excellent teachers – Ján Skladaný, Jela Špitková and Albín Vrteľ. After graduation, he joined the State Opera in Banská Bystrica, where he worked for 15 years, mostly as the principal second violin. At the same time, he taught violin at the Primary Art School of Ján Cikker in Banská Bystrica. In 1992, when the the Conservatory of Ján Levoslav Bella was founded, he accepted a teaching position and he worked there for 25 years as a violin teacher and for a long time as the head of the string department. He was also at the birth of the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, where he lead the Department of Orchestral Instruments for a quarter of a century. Today, many of his students are now active at home and abroad as soloists, chamber players, or orchestral players and they teach at art schools. Peter Strenáčik is a regular member of expert committees of regional and national violin competitions.
He is the co-founder of the International Violin Competition Prime Violin.