This year, the Geneva International Music Competition is dedicated to percussion and composition. From 8-21 November 2019, more than 30 candidates will be competing for one of the prizes. Juries are chaired by French percussionist Philippe Spiesser and Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.
135 young musicians and composers aged 16 to 39 from 31 countries applied. 34 candidates aged 19 to 29 from 12 nationalities were selected for the percussion competition and three composers were selected as finalists for the composition competition: Daniel Arango-Prada (23, Columbia) for his work Dune, Hyeon Joon Sohn (32, South Korea) for his work The Living Reed and Hinako Takagi (30, Japan) for her work L’Instant.