The Fondation Etrillard supports the Concours de Genève, one of the largest international music competitions founded in 1921. The competition aims to discover, promote and support young talents, providing them with tools to develop their international career.
One of the special features of the Concours de Genève is that it honours different disciplines each year. The year 2022 celebrated the piano. In 2023, the 77th edition honoured two disciplines: the flute and the string quartet. Finally, composition and voice were rewarded in 2024.
The Foundation's support takes the form of a Special Prize Fondation Etrillard. The Prize is awarded by the official competition jury to the finalist who presented the most remarkable artistic personal project during the semi-final in Geneva. This Special Prize supports the Competition's efforts in the field of profesionnal training.
Vision String Quartet, Winner 2016 © Anne Laure Lechat
The Fondation Etrillard is also helping to set up a new programme within the Geneva Competition. Prior to the performance competition, candidates will receive training to develop their personal artistic project.
Initiated in 2022, the artistic project is one of the three stages of the Geneva Competition semi-finals. In the first stage, with the support of two coaches, the candidates have to devise an artistic project that they would like to carry out once they have won the Competition. They then defend their project before the Jury, answering questions from journalist Charlotte Gardner. The Geneva Competition helps the three prize-winners to implement their artistic projects in the years following their award.
In 2022, the winner of the Interpretation Prize, 18-year-old pianist Kevin Chen, was also the winner of the Special Prize. He had dazzled the audience in the final with his performance of Chopin's Concerto No.1 in E minor.
He has since won the 17th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition and performs on major international stages.
Kevin Chen, winner 2022 © Anne-Laure Lechat
In 2023, the jury chose the Quatuor Elmire as the winner of the Special Prize in the string quartet discipline. Comprising four musicians based in Paris (David Petrlik and Yoan Brakha on violins, Hortense Fourrier on viola and Rémi Carlon on cello), the quartet has taken advice from some of the greatest quartettists, including members of the Hagen, Ysaÿe, Berg, Modigliani, Belcea and Ébène Quartets.
Artists in residence at the Fondation Singer-Polignac and the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth, Spedidam generation artists and winners of the Fondation Banque Populaire, the quartet also won the Second Prize for interpretation at the finals of the Geneva Competition 2023.
Quatuor Elmire, winner 2023 © Anne-Laure Lechat
“Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the pillars of humanity's world heritage and, for us, one of the heroes of Western society in the 18th and 19th centuries. Immersing ourselves in Beethoven's life is our guiding principle. To impact the audience with this revolutionary music in which Beethoven surpasses the limits of his disability (his deafness) and condition, our complete collection of the three "Razumovsky" quartets will take the form of a concert performance, a CD recording, an educational and social project, as well as an artistic and pedagogical digital visual support. This will be the creation of a new dramatic work whose main point is to truly make people understand and transmit Beethoven's music through the composer's personality at a crucial moment in his life: the writing of the Heiligenstadt Testament.”
Heiligenstadt Testament, letter written by Beethoven on 6 October 1802
On the stage of Geneva's Grand Théâtre in October 2024, the 28-year-old Swiss soprano Chelsea Marilyn Zurflüh won both the First Prize in the Singing Competition and the Fondation Etrillard Special Prize.
Her personal artistic project is entitled ‘Whispers of the Waves’. It's a two-part project on the theme of the sea: a scenic concert combining song, piano and dance; and a children's version of the same concert, in the form of a tale, in which young audiences can actively participate.
© Anne-Laure Lechat
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