First prize in the 2014 Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition was awarded on 8 December to the competition’s first female winner, Elim Chan.
The 28-year-old was born in Hong Kong to British parents and currently studies at theUniversity of Michigan.Her win secures her £15,000 to support specialist study and concert engagements. It also includes a one-year appointment as an assistant conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra, during which she will have the opportunity to work with the orchestra’s principal conductor, Valery Gergiev, principal guest conductors Michael Tilson Thomas and Daniel Harding, as well as taking part in events for LSO Discovery, the orchestra’s music education and community programme.
For Monday’s final, Chan conducted theLondon Symphony Orchestrain a programme of Beethoven’s Overture Egmont, Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Her fellow finalists were Jiří Rožeň, from the Czech Republic, and Mihhail Gerts, from Estonia.
The biennial competition was inaugurated by Donatella Flick in 1990 under the patronage of Prince Charles, and aims to advance the careers of young conductors and help the winner to establish an international conducting career. It is open to candidates up to the age of 35 who are citizens of the 28 member-countries of the European Union. Previous winners includeFrançois-Xavier RothandPablo González.