A total of 110 applications from 26 countries on three continents have been received for the 3rd Zoltán Kodály International Music Competition, which will be held in Debrecen from the 5th to the 13th of July, and will be open to young horn, trumpet and trombone players.
After the bowers and conductors, the 2025 Kodály Zoltán International Music Competition is open to horn, trumpet and trombone players of any nationality, up to the age of 30 on the opening day of the competition.
Applicants – including musicians from the US, Colombia, Germany, Israel, Japan, China, Poland and Azerbaijan – were subjected to a video pre-selection before the three-round competition, which resulted in 21 trumpet, 15 horn and 12 trombone players starting the live rounds.
The jury of the 2025 Kodály International Music Competition is chaired by Marie-Luise Neunecker and includes Gábor Boldoczki, Abbie Conant, Frits Damrow, Gustáv Hőna, Wim Van Hasselt and Szabolcs Zempléni.
The jury will select a maximum of 18 competitors for the second round (at least 3 horn players, 3 trumpet players and 3 trombonists) and 6 for the final (at least 1 horn player, 1 trumpet player and 1 trombonist).
“The first and the second Kodály Competition, which was oversubscribed many times over and met with great interest, showed that the country’s second largest city is capable of providing a level of quality that attracts musicians from all corners of the world,” said Dániel Somogyi-Tóth, Director of Music of the City of Debrecen, who said that “an important task of the Kodály Philharmonia Debrecen is to seek opportunities in which Debrecen can excel not only regionally or nationally, but also internationally”.
He added: “It is a source of pride for the city to host the Zoltán Kodály International Music Competition for the third time, this time giving young brass players from all over the world the opportunity to play.”
Tuba composer Roland Szentpáli, who composed one of the compulsory pieces of the 3rd Zoltán Kodály International Music Competition, was delighted that the Kodály Competition will this year focus on several brass instruments and stressed that a prestigious international jury has been assembled. As for the inclusion of a newly composed contemporary piece in the compulsory material, he said that “this is a relatively well-established practice, and it can be very rewarding for a competitor to learn a piece for which there are not necessarily stylistic expectations, nor are there any established performing traditions.”
This is not the first time Roland Szentpáli has composed for prestigious international competitions. His new piece, Cover, is inspired by the art of Zoltán Kodály, and he says that the emphasis is clearly on the musical and technical challenges: “it is a work that comes from within, in which the player can show himself in most aspects, and in the performance of which he can bring out his own musicality.”
The first two rounds of the competition will be held in the Simonffy Hall of the Debrecen Zenede from the 6th to the 10th of July, while the orchestral final will take place on the 12th of July at the Kölcsey Centre. The gala competition will be held on the 13th of July at the Kölcsey Centre, with the winners also taking part. (Registration tickets for the gala competition can be purchased here.) The final and the gala will be performed with the Kodály Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Imre Kollár.
Special prizes for the competition have been offered by the Budapest Music Center, Editio Musica Budapest Zeneműkiadó Kft., Editions Bim, Hungaroton, the Hungarian Academy of Arts, the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra, the Banatul Philharmonic Orchestra of Timisoara and the Liszt Academy. The professional partner of the competition series organised by the Kodály Philharmonia Debrecen is Jeunesses Musicales Hungary, the Hungarian representative of the world’s largest youth music organisation.
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