Violinist Joshua Brown wins $100,000 First Prize in 2023 China International Violin Competition

November 14, 2023, 2:32 PM · Twenty-three-year-old American violinist Joshua Brown has won First Prize in the Beijing-based China International Music Competition, also known as the Global Music Education League Violin Competition.

Violinist Joshua Brown.

Here are all the top winners:

First prize ($100,000): Joshua Brown, 23, of the United Stages
Second prize ($65,000): Elli Choi, 22, of the United Stages
Third prize ($30,000): Chaowen Luo, 22, of China

The winners were announced on Monday after each of them performed a violin concerto with musicians of The Philadelphia Orchestra with the Orchestra Academia China at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

A laureate in numerous competitions, Brown most recently was a prize-winner in the 2022 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and he won First Prize in the 2019 International Violin Competition of Leopold Mozart in Augsburg, Germany, as well as the “Mozart” Prize, the Audience Award, the Chairman of the Jury Special Prize, the Kronberg Academy Special Prize, and the CD Production Special Prize.

As a full-scholarship recipient, Joshua earned his Bachelor of Music and is currently pursuing his Master of Music with Donald Weilerstein at New England Conservatory of Music (NEC). For the five years prior to NEC, Joshua studied with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Academy as a Scholarship Fellow (recipient of both the Rachel Barton Pine Scholarship and the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Fellowship)

Joshua plays on Nicolo Amati violin from Cremona, circa 1635-1640, on loan from the Mary B. Galvin Foundation through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

BELOW: Here is Joshua's performance with pianist Thomas Hoppe from last week's SemiFinal Round at the China International Violin Competition:

E. Ysaÿe - Sonatas for solo violin No.1, Op. 27, No.1 "Joseph Szigeti"
F. Schubert - Duo in A major, Op. 162
Sicong Ma’s Rondo No. 3
L. van Beethoven Sonata No. 7 in C minor, Op. 30

Originally scheduled for 2020, the China International Violin Competition was held this year after a delay due to the global pandemic. Jury members included chairman Bin Huang, Fridemann Eichhorn, Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici, Mariusz Patyra, Lucie Robert, Joel Smirnoff, Weidong Tong and Pavel Vernikov.

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Replies

Christian Lesniak

November 14, 2023 at 10:29 PM · Very cool! He greatly impressed me at last year's Indianapolis Competition. If you get a chance, listen to his Bartok 2, which is just out of this world. You can find it from this page, even though it's unfortunately not on Youtube:

https://violin.org/watch-archived-performances/

I think it's the best performance of the work I've heard from a living violinst (although I haven't heard them all).

Elisabeth Matesky

November 16, 2023 at 06:01 AM · Re ~ 23 Years Young Rare Violinist, Joshua Brown, US ~ Gold Medal {#2}

Hearing the Ysaye Solo Sonate for Violin #1 "Szigeti", in the hands of an as yet to be globally known young artist who offers Music, *Joshua Brown, and btw, Winner of several other International Violin Competitions, which to this Replier, original pupil of Jascha Heifetz, and private 'Guinea Pig Heifetz Pupil' of the great Nathan Milstein, I do know when I am hearing a truly refined musician making pure Music in the Style of the Great Franz Schubert, which as my mentor, Nathan Milstein, often told me was one of the most profound Composers with Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms and could not speak highly enough about Schubert's purity of heart and priestly composition ...

Mr. Brown truly immerses himself and his Soul into the root of each work he offers and is not in any way showy or playing to the crowd, but offering the Music in a manner befitting a seasoned Concert Artist knowing the Music must 'Star' whilst offering many inner hidden messages with fidelity to the score and style of the period without disturbing any nuance or suggestion of emotional feeling in the Violin Piano Duo works and the superb and sensitive Pianist with whom Joshua Brown made Music!!!!

I did not expect a musician of this artistic sensitivity to appear but Providence is full of surprises and in Beethoven he offers the Hope of a New Generation of Violinist Artists with his deeply kind yet serious approach & also humour expressed without any antics to alert the audience this is for fun ... I find in this young violinist a very serious person with profound thoughts & understanding of just What his Mission Is ~ That of the Music's Story Teller without false interpretations. I have the feeling Joshua Brown is a listening pupil of both my mentors, Jascha Heifetz & Nathan Milstein, as is expressed in his beautiful interpretation of both the Schubert and Beethoven Piano & Violin Sonata No. 7 or what I've come to term, "Beethoven Unadorned" ~ No need for megaphones or forced antics to suggest the motif's in Ludwig van Beethoven's Scores ... At last, I can relax knowing when it is my time to depart this Earth, there will be One Sincere Artist who Loves Music offering it with true Love of the Score and of the Instrument he is playing upon ...

Never having written such a 'Testimonial' I am deeply moved to now do so for one who will without doubt make a major imprint on his generation and many others to follow ~

May the Gods Bless this young man of profound heart with a violin technical 'tool box' to afford audiences the rarest pleasure in hearing undisturbed Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven and I'm sure, Mozart and Mr. Bach ...

Wishing Joshua Brown every blessing of Violin Truth for Music's Sake, I am deeply grateful to have heard US Violinist, Joshua Brown!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Elisabeth Matesky ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Fwd ~ dmg {Artist Representative US}

Laurie Niles

November 16, 2023 at 07:07 PM · Greetings everyone, I also wanted to share this video of Joshua Brown's Finals Concert, in which he performed the Brahms Violin Concerto with Musicians of The Philadelphia Orchestra with the Orchestra Academia China, Tristan Rais-Sherman conducting:

Here is the video.

(It wasn't possible to embed the video!)