The “Guido Cantelli” International Conducting Award in Novara has announced its 2024 edition.

The competition is one of the most prestigious international competitions that has seen such winners as Riccardo Muti, Eliahu Inbal, Ádám Fischer, Hubert Soudant, and Donato Renzetti.

Applications for the competition will be open on Feb. 26 and April 15, 2024, and conductors of all nationalities, aged 18 to 35, will be able to apply for the 13th edition of the Cantelli Award. The preliminary phase and semi-finals of which will take place in Milan followed by the finals at the Coccia Theatre in Novara on Oct. 6, also open to the public.

For the first time in 2024, the ensemble with which the candidates will measure themselves will be the Milan Symphony Orchestra. The First Prize will be 12,000 euros, the Second Prize 8,000 euros and the Third Prize 5,000 euros.

Corinne Baroni, director of the Coccia Theatre said, “Each new edition of the Cantelli Award, where I act as the organizational and artistic director of the competition, is an exciting moment. Every year the challenges are more and more demanding and the organization more and more complex, yet the joy and sense of responsibility grow proportionately. The reason for such enthusiasm exuding from the walls of our theatre is to be found, I believe, in the idea that music, with its intrinsic beauty, possesses the power to transform the world, and here lies the most authentic vocation of the Cantelli Award. It is important that the silence that has marked forty years of the Award’s history remains forever a memory so that the Cantelli Award can continue to be a beacon of inspiration for the younger generations and a catalyst of motivation for those whose task it is to keep the flame alive.”