Conductors' forum promotes ZHdK graduates
Jonas Bürgin, Aurel Dawidiuk and Francesco Cagnasso, students of Johannes Schläfli in orchestral conducting, are now also scholarship holders of the German Conductors' Forum.
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The Conductors' Forum, which is aimed at top young conductors, accompanies the young talents over several years on their way into professional life. Holly Hyun Choe and Ana María Patiño-Osorio, a student and alumna of Johannes Schlaefli respectively, are currently also scholarship holders of the Conductors' Forum.
Jonas Bürgin completed his bachelor's degree in orchestral conducting with Johannes Schlaefli in 2021. He is also one of eight candidates for the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award 2021. At the Gstaad Menuhin Festival Conducting Academy he was awarded the Neeme Järvi Prize 2019 and in 2017 he won first prize at the London Classical Soloists Competition I. Jonas Bürgin is artistic and administrative director of the Junge Zürcher Harmoniker, which he founded in 2015.
Aurel Dawidiuk has been studying orchestral conducting with Johannes Schlaefli and piano with Till Fellner at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2020. He also receives organ lessons from Martin Sander in Basel. He has won 1st prize in numerous piano and organ competitions. In 2019 he won the IV. International Young Organist Competition Moscow and the TONALi Piano Competition in Hamburg, where he received the Christoph Eschenbach Prize as well as the main prize.
Francesco Cagnasso comes from the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. He is currently studying in Ulrich Windfuhr's class at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. In 2017, he completed his Master's in Music Theory at the Zurich University of the Arts with Burkhard Kinzler, Felix Baumann, Johannes Schild and Mathias Steinauer, as well as the Certificate in Advanced Studies in Orchestral Conducting with Ivan Wassilevsky.