The Walter W. Naumburg Foundation sponsors competitions and provides awards for young

classical musicians Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" can a ...

in North America. Founded in 1925, it operates the prestigious Naumburg Competition.

Foundation and concerts

It was founded in 1925 by Walter Wehle Naumburg, a wealthy amateur

cellist The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

and son of noted New York City music patron and philanthropist

Elkan Naumburg Elkan Naumburg (1835–1924) was a New York City merchant, banker, philanthropist and musicologist, best remembered for his sponsorship of the arts in Manhattan. From the last quarter of the nineteenth century, he used his wealth to promote pu ...

. Elkan Naumburg, owner of the eminent Wall Street bank E. Naumburg & Co., founded the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts in 1905. The concerts were originally performed at the bandstand on the concert ground of New York's

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

, and starting in 1923 were performed in the

Naumburg Bandshell The Central Park Mall is a pedestrian esplanade in Central Park, in Manhattan, New York City. The mall, leading to Bethesda Fountain, provides the only purely formal feature in the naturalistic original plan of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calv ...

at the same location.

Naumburg Competition

The Naumburg Competition is one of the oldest and most prestigious music competitions in the world. The website San Francisco Classical Voice writes that "the Naumburg Competition has one of the best track records of selecting young musicians who, in short order, build significant careers". The first competition was held in 1926. In an open audition format,

pianists A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

violinists The following lists of violinists are available: * List of classical violinists * List of contemporary classical violinists * List of jazz violinists * List of popular music violinists * List of Indian violinists * List of Persian violinists * ...

, and

cellists A person who plays the cello is called a cellist. This list of notable cellists is divided into four categories: 1) Living Classical Cellists; 2) Non-Classical Cellists; 3) Deceased Classical Cellists; 4) Deceased Non-Classical Cellists. The ce ...

were all eligible to compete. In 1928 it was expanded to include

vocalists Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...

. The prize included cash awards and the opportunity to play concerts in New York's

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

, which virtually insured reviews by New York's most influential music critics. In 1946,

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, critic, writer, teacher, pianist, and conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as the "Dean of American Compos ...

and

William Schuman William Howard Schuman (August 4, 1910February 15, 1992) was an American composer and arts administrator. Life Schuman was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City, son of Samuel and Rachel Schuman. He was named after the 27th U.S. ...

joined the Naumburg Foundation board of directors, and shortly afterwards the Foundation began awarding

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

s with recording projects. In 1961, the format of the competition was changed into a professional competition with a single winner, for one particular discipline. In 1965, the competition was expanded to include

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

ensembles. Since the early 1970s, the Naumburg Competition has generally rotated three different categories – piano, strings, and voice – on a triennial basis (although there have also been competitions for

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

, and

classical guitar The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string (music), string instrument with strings made of catgut, gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the ...

). Winners receive a cash prize and two recital appearances in

Alice Tully Hall Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The hall is named for Alice Tully, a New York performer and Philanthropy, philanthropist whose donations assis ...

. Other opportunities include a recording project, a commission (to be premiered in one of the Alice Tully Hall recitals) and many performance opportunities throughout the United States. Previous winners of the International Naumburg Competition include

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (born January 10, 1961) is an Italian and American classical violinist and teacher. Early life and education Salerno-Sonnenberg was born in Rome, Italy. Her father left when she was three months old. She emigrated with ...

Elmar Oliveira Elmar Oliveira (born June 28, 1950) is an American violinist. Early life The son of Portuguese immigrants, Elmar Oliveira was born in Naugatuck, Connecticut. Oliveira was nine when he began studying the violin with his brother John. At age 16 h ...

Dawn Upshaw Dawn Upshaw (born July 17, 1960) is an American soprano. She is the recipient of several Grammy Awards and has released a number of Edison Award-winning discs; she performs both opera and art song, and her repertoire spans Baroque to contempo ...

Robert Mann Robert Nathaniel Mann (July 19, 1920 – January 1, 2018) was a violinist, composer, conductor, and founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet, as well as a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music. Mann, the first violinist at Jui ...

Adele Marcus Adele Marcus (February 22, 1906 May 3, 1995) was an American pianist and instructor whose career was based at the Juilliard School in New York City. Life and career Marcus was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the youngest of 13 children of a rabbi ...

Jorge Bolet Jorge Bolet (November 15, 1914October 16, 1990) was a Cuban-born American concert pianist, conductor and teacher. Among his teachers were Leopold Godowsky, and Moriz Rosenthal – the latter a renowned pupil of Franz Liszt. Life Bolet was born ...

Kun-Woo Paik Kun-woo Paik (; born March 10, 1946, in Seoul) is a South Korean pianist. He has performed with multiple orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic. Early life Kun-Woo ...

Leonidas Kavakos Leonidas Kavakos (; born 30 October 1967) is a Greek violinist and conductor. He has won several international violin competition prizes, including the Sibelius, Paganini, Naumburg, and Indianapolis competitions. He is an Onassis Foundation sc ...

Abbey Simon Abbey Henry Simon (January 8, 1920 – December 18, 2019) was an American concert pianist, teacher, and recording artist. He was a protégé of Josef Hofmann at the Curtis Institute of Music and a winner of the Naumburg International Piano C ...

William Kapell Oscar William Kapell (September 20, 1922 – October 29, 1953) was an American classical pianist. ''The Washington Post'' described him as "America's first great pianist", while ''The New York Times'' described him as "one of the last century's ...

Stephen Hough Sir Stephen Andrew Gill Hough (; born 22 November 1961) is a British-Australian classical pianist, composer and writer. Biography Hough was born in Heswall (then in Cheshire) on the Wirral Peninsula, and grew up in Thelwall, where he began pi ...

, and Harvey Shapiro. Winners of the Chamber Music Award include the American,

Brentano Brentano is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Antonie Brentano, philanthropist * August Brentano, bookseller * Bernard von Brentano, novelist * Christian Brentano, German writer * Clemens Brentano, poet and novelist ...

, Miro, and Muir string quartets, and the

Eroica Trio The Eroica Trio is an American piano trio consisting of Erika Nickrenz, piano; Sara Parkins, violin; and Sara Sant'Ambrogio, cello. The trio take their name from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. They have toured and recorded widely, and released ...

Winners

;1960 :

Joseph Silverstein Joseph Harry Silverstein (March 21, 1932 – November 21, 2015) was an American violinist and conductor. Known to family, friends and colleagues as "Joey", Silverstein was born in Detroit. As a youth, Silverstein studied with his father, Bernard ...

, violinist ;1961 : Werner Torkanowsky, conductor ;1964 :Elizabeth Mosher, soprano ;1968 :

Jorge Mester Jorge Mester (born April 10, 1935, Mexico City) is a Mexican conductor of Hungarian ancestry. He has served as the artistic director for the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Veracruz, since it was founded in 2014. Biography He studied condu ...

, conductor ;1972 :

Robert Davidovici Robert Davidovici (born 1946) is a Romanian-American violinist. He took First Prize honors in the Naumburg Competition in 1972. In 1983 Davidovici tied, with Maryvonne Le Dizès, for first place in the Carnegie Hall International American Music ...

, violinist

References

*
The Naumburg Competition: Formula One for Finding Talent
sfcv.org
Previous Winners

External links

* {{Authority control Classical music awards Violin competitions Singing competitions Piano competitions in the United States Awards established in 1925 1925 establishments in New York (state) Naumburg family