Artistic Director Pavel Vernikov speaks out as Classic Violin Olympus Competition nears closer

Gulf Network

With the launch of its preselection competitions on March 17th, 2024, Classic Violin Olympus (CVO) set the music world ablaze, drawing attention from stakeholders and making headlines with its revolutionary approach and promise of bringing a breath of fresh air to the sector.

Now, 7 months and 5 contests later, 10 of the competition’s finalists have been confirmed, with just one preliminary event, and two more finalists, to go. Once complete, the full cohort will be meeting in Dubai in 2025, going head-to-head from the 22nd to the 28th of April in front of a board of 25 jurors, as they vie for an outstanding prize fund of €310,000!

In the interim, the competition, which is being helmed by President Konstantin Ishkhanov, and Artistic Director Pavel Vernikov, continues to elicit discussion in music circles, inviting both praise and critique. With its stated goal of finding the finest violinists of our time now closer than ever, we sat down with Mr Vernikov to discuss his reaction to the pre-selection process, his views ahead of the Grand Finale, and his answers to fans and critics alike.

The lengthy pre-selection process for Classic Violin Olympus is now soon complete. Looking back, what are your thoughts about how this has played out?

I am certainly very satisfied with the way everything is going, from the organisation to the level of the participants. The goals that Konstantin Ishkhanov, the President of the Competition, and I set for ourselves were 100% fulfilled; even more than that, we surpassed our expectations.

For many years I have been participating as a juror in various competitions, and I can honestly say that over the last 10 years I have never heard of any competition whose qualifying stages could equal the level of the final competition. We have managed that here. None of the qualifying stages has been inferior to the finals of the biggest and most prestigious competitions in the world.

And in terms of the individuality of the participants who performed on our stage, they even surpassed many finals as well. The lack of an age limit certainly played its role. There are not just young ‘athletes’ trying to win, but also people in their 40s and 70s – wonderful, bright, wise musicians – people who not only know how to play the violin, but who have something to say with it.

Many people complain that there are no great musicians now, but they haven't disappeared anywhere. There are many musicians with a bright individuality who do not fit the criteria, the ‘fashionable’, generally accepted frame, of modern competitions. They have something to say, but, unfortunately, there is no place to say it. We’ve managed to attract wonderful musicians who have something to say in art.

One of the aims of such a process was to ensure as wide a pool of participants as possible. Judging from the candidates that have made it to the Grand Finale so far, would you say you are satisfied with the level of quality?

Various wonderful musicians applied with us and now we already have 10 participants. I can honestly claim that each one of them is an event. And it turned out so marvellously – there are both young violinists, from 18 years, and adults, from 35 years, and several of them that I personally know are very serious and professional musicians. And I emphasise – musicians. Any competition would be jealous to have at least 5 of our finalists as participants!

I have great respect for all competitions, as they fulfil two tasks – to give young people the opportunity to make themselves known and to help them financially. I know a great guy who performs at a new contest every three months…it is just like he is going to work. And there are a lot of guys like that. The task of our contest is different – to find real musicians. We decided to combine two components – a competition that allows you to earn good money, and a format that opens up musical talent regardless of age, and the results are speaking for themselves!

There has been some criticism from certain quarters with regard to supposed links between certain participants and jurors, with some criticising, for instance, the fact that a contestant is an ex-student of a particular jury member or other. What is your response, and what measures has CVO taken to ensure fairness and transparency?

Professors are often ‘in love’ with their students and try to support them. They believe that their students are the best. Unfortunately, this favouritism in the industry happens. But we made sure that we had honest people on the jury, and more than that, there isn’t even the possibility of behaving dishonestly in our competition even if we wanted to, because there are rules that were negotiated from the beginning:

1. I asked all the juries not to discuss the competition, and especially not the participants.
2. Even if one of the jurors had a pupil in the competition, we did not know about it. Only the organisers were notified.
3. The highest and lowest marks were discarded when calculating the results, which means that personal biases were negated.
4. No one knows how anyone votes. We only see the results when they are announced.

Even if I, or any judge, wanted to help someone or nominate someone, we couldn't do it.

With that being said, I do want to address something about this criticism. There is a saying that we have – ‘behind a good horse, there is always dust’. This contest has aroused great enthusiasm in many watching – I received congratulations from many wonderful musicians, friends, and even from people I don't know at all, with many using the key word “finally”, which emphasises the importance of the steps we have taken for the industry – but also at the same time great envy and anger in others.

I read different groups online, many of whom decided to remain anonymous, and was surprised at the bile that can come from people. The funniest was a comment from someone who wrote absolute nonsense, claiming that Boris Brovtsyn was one of the winners of the qualifying stages because we have known each other for over 20 years and he is my colleague at the university, and stating that I, as a colleague, helped him. Nobody helped Boris.

The word ‘help’ and Brovtsyn are not comparable at all and look ridiculous; only people far removed from classical music would believe that. You could say: ‘Vernikov works at the Menuhin School. Boris worked there a little bit. So he helped him.’ But I have been invited to work there as a professor repeatedly for 20 years, and I only accepted that invitation last year and was only there as a guest professor, so this association is ridiculously farfetched.

By this same reasoning I am also a professor at the MUK - Music and Arts Private University of Vienna, an AD at Piccolo Violino Magico and the Sion Festival, and have been a guest professor or delivered masterclasses at dozens of other institutions, so would anyone who has ever been associated with these places also fall under suspicion?

I do not judge people, on the contrary, I am grateful to them, because thanks to them our contest has become even more popular, but there are people in life who are always jealous when someone else has success. Luckily, I was born in Odessa, in Ukraine, and I take many things in life with humour, even such negative comments.

There were even some criticisms that the performance of Alexey Shor's work is compulsory. I know this man personally, we were both born in Ukraine, and he, unlike me, became a brilliant mathematician and got rich. I am always on the side of people who are successful by their own head and labour.

They should not be envied. Alexey helped a lot with the Ukrainian orchestra, the Kyiv Virtuosi, and this is something that I am very grateful for because it means a lot for the sphere of Ukrainian classical music.

His music is performed by serious musicians, but there is so much animosity that comes out, with people saying that the music is played because they pay for it. Well, who plays for free? Some are paid more, some are paid less. Some people like Shor's music, some people don't. But there's nothing to blame, and some people really want to. It's absolute nonsense.

They also point to some ties to Russia and Russian money. That's ridiculous. We're both Ukrainians. We have been doing a lot to help the country and its people all our lives. There is no smell of Russian money in our project. Many countries have imposed sanctions on Russia and Russian money, and therefore companies are not keen to link their business with Russia.

One would have to be suicidal to destroy such a project, where the artistic director isOdessa and from Ukraine, and the composer is a resident composer from Kiev.  If I saw that Konstantin Ishkhanov or anyone in the organisation of CMDI Group is connected with Russian money, I would immediately stop all contacts and work on the project, simply because in my practice it is excluded.

The financing of this project is absolutely transparent and is not connected with Russian money. The organisers are serious people who will not risk their reputation and company.

It is hard to say what such critics are trying to achieve, and I sometimes wonder if it's all written by one person.

Turning to the Grand Finale, could you walk us through your thoughts ahead of this stage?

To be honest, I don't see where this is going to end up at all, simply because every one of the 12 finalists deserves to win! The finale will now be a marathon consisting of several stages.

The participants will have to perform Beethoven's Triple Concerto together with two wonderful guest musicians – pianist Simon Trpceski and cellist Alexander Chaushian. They will also have to prove themselves as a concertmaster, performing with two different orchestras, and will also perform solo on stage.

We will have 25 jury members, each of whom will be able to award a special prize to their favourite contestant. For example, an invitation to perform as part of the festival with an orchestra, a gift of training, etc. The most important result for me is, of course, the organisation of such a large-scale and unprecedented competition with 12 unique violinists. There is no such level anywhere, and there hasn't been for the last 20 years.

One notable inclusion in this final round is a section labelled as a “conversation/exchange/Q&A with the jury panel”. This is a unique addition when compared to other contests of this type. How would you describe the expected nature of this exchange?

The format of this discussion is still being finalised and kept secret, but the basic idea is that the jury will be able to get to know the personality of the contestant better. I can't say whether this will be a decisive criterion for the evaluation (everyone decides for themselves), but the conversation will definitely influence it.

One of the stated motivations behind Classic Violin Olympus was a desire to instil a degree of variety within the world of music competitions, and shake the foundations of what has become a rather stale and stilted paradigm. Would you say that this project is currently on the right path towards fulfilling those ambitions?

Judging by the feedback, I can confidently say that Konstantin Ishkhanov and I have already stirred up the world of classical music competitions. Our project has moved away from the traditional form.

Traditions are good, but not all of them need to be continued. Sometimes some instruments become obsolete and no longer work. Our project is a call to numerous competitions to change, to try new things. If we succeeded, then others will be able to do the same. And I know that attempts are already being made to make the programme more diverse and unusual.

As I said earlier, we have definitely achieved our goals. The competition has become an event, and has reached a level that I did not expect. It has resonated with the public. This is already great and we are moving forward in the right direction. Now I can't wait for the finals and the results of this ambitious project!