Final Preselection Contest of Classic Violin Olympus Announces Prizewinners

Elli Choi and Ruifeng Lin are officially the final two participants of Classic Violin Olympus, completing the 12-member cohort that will contest the competition’s Grand Finale in April 2025

Starting back in March 2024, the Classic Violin Olympus International Competition has taken one step closer to its Grand Finale in Dubai in April 2025. The last of the competition’s six international preselection contests has come to a close and revealed the last two finalists.

Held in six different music capitals around the world, including Tokyo, Vienna, New York, London, Rome, and Dubai, each contest saw 20 talented violinists from across the globe compete for a prize fund of €35,000, and the chance to win eligibility to take part in the invite-only Grand Finale, awarded solely to the top two entrants of each event.

For this sixth preliminary round, hosted at Dubai’s Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management from November 1-5, the 20 contenders performed for a five-person jury panel.

Led by Jury Chairman Pavel Vernikov (Switzerland), the jury included Eszter Haffner (Austria), Massimo Quarta (Italy), Itzhak Rashkovsky (UK), and Yamei Yu (China/Germany).

Elli Choi claimed the First Prize, Ruifeng Lin secured the Second Prize, and Issei Kurihara was awarded the Third Prize. In addition to their share of the €35,000 prize pool, with Choi receiving €20,000, Lin €10,000, and Kurihara €5,000, both Choi and Lin also earned eligibility to proceed to Classic Violin Olympus’s Grand Finale, with all expenses covered.

In 2025, Elli and Ruifeng will join the top two prizewinners at the other five preselection Classic Violin Competitions — London, Rome, New York, Vienna, and Tokyo.

“I’m really happy to have won and to be here amongst so many wonderful violinists”, Choi said. “Dubai is such a beautiful place, and the organization here has been outstanding, we’ve had an amazing experience all the way. The program wasn’t easy, and there were some new pieces for me like the sonata by Alexey Shor, but I worked very hard to prepare it, and I’m happy that the jury enjoyed my performances. Now it’s time to start working for the Finale! I know it won’t be easy because every finalist is already a prize winner at one of these preliminary competitions, but I’m extremely excited about it and I can’t wait to be back!”

In the initial round, candidates presented their renditions of one of Niccolò Paganini's 24 caprices of their choice, followed by the first movement of a concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the Violin Sonata by Composer-in-Residence Alexey Shor and Mikhail Pletnev. 

“I think that Alexey Shor’s music is very sincere, very honest, and touching,” remarked Vernikov when commenting on the latter piece. “Both my colleagues on the jury and myself all woke up with his music still with us, resonating in our minds, and I don’t want to criticize other modern composers, but I can’t imagine this happening with the music of many other contemporary composers. In principle, I think that music should be understandable to ordinary people, it should not just be made for a specific audience of musicians and musicologists, and I think that the music of Shor does this wonderfully.”

“It’s a compulsory piece in our competition so I’ve listened to it multiple times, and I find it so touching”, he continued. “After you listen to it you find yourself feeling better inside your very soul! It was good to have it in the repertoire, because through it the participants had to show that they are not just able to play standard complicated pieces like Paganini and others, but also complex contemporary music like Shor’s that may seem easy to play initially, but in fact contains many different shades and tones that need to be brought out deftly.”

With the preselection rounds now over, the spotlight shifts to the main event itself. The Classic Violin Olympus will see each of the 12 finalists go through a six-phase program designed to test many aspects of their skillset — including solo performances, ensemble and orchestral works, and a Q&A with the 25 jurors. The contestants will compete for a prize fund of €310,000.

To learn more about the competition, visit here classicviolinolympus.com.