Tianyi Lu
(c) Finotti Tosi
Tianyi Lu, a young conductor from New Zealand with Chinese origins is the winner of the 11th Edition of the Premio Internazionale d’Orchestra Guido Cantelli. The thirty-year-old conductor born in Shanghai stood out from the other finalists – Bertie Baigent (25, from England), Diego Ceretta (23, from Italy) and Dmitry Matvienko (29, from Belarus) – at the competition’s final concert at the Teatro Coccia di Novara. Leading the Teatro Regio Torino Orchestra the candidates conducted Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Symphony No. 4 in A major “Italian” and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The concert may still be seen on the Competition’s Facebook page and on the YouTube channel of the Teatro Coccia di Novara.
« During these difficult times – says Tianyi Lu -, it’s normal to be afraid, but we need to be generous and care for others. That’s why I would like to give my contribution, especially in a region like Piedmont that has been so strongly affected by the pandemic: I will donate part of the prize (two thousand euro) to a local non-profit organization, Specchio dei Tempi, which supports mainly the elderly and the weak ones. Music and art must survive, without them we risk forgetting who we are».
Tianyi Lu has New Zealand passport but presently lives in the Netherlands. She is Female-Conductor-in-Residence with the Welsh National Opera, Principal Conductor of the St. Woolos in the UK, and until December 2019 she was Assistant Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Besides winning First Prize, Tianyi Lu has also won the Teatro Regio Torino Orchestra Award (1,500 €), assigned by the musicians of the Orchestra of the Regio, the Youth Award (1,000 €) assigned by a jury made of middle school students from Novara.
The Critics Award was granted to Dmitry Matvienko. Matvienko was also granted the Made in Italy Prize (a tailcoat designed by Carlo Pignatelli), given by the President of the Fondazione Teatro Coccia, Fabio Ravanelli, and by its Director Corinne Baroni.
The Town Award was granted to Diego Ceretta.
