Judges 2024

Grand Prix Judges 2024

Mark Cortale

Mark Cortale is recently produced the critically acclaimed new musical Days of Wine and Roses with music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, book by Craig Lucas and directed by Michael Greif - which opened on Broadway on in January at Studio 54. He produced the Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominated Off-Broadway musical Midnight At The Never Get by Mark Sonnenblick. He recently celebrated his twelfth and final season as Producing Artistic Director of The Art House in Provincetown where he presented artists that included Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Sutton Foster, Jessie Mueller, Christine Ebersole and Megan Mullally. In 2020, he founded the developmental theatre lab New Works Provincetown. In conjunction with producing partners Jonathan Murray and Harvey Reese, Mark has commissioned five works to date including the following shows currently in development: Maiden Voyage with book and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein and music by Carmel Dean, Beautiful Little Fool with book by Mona Mansour and music and lyrics by Hannah Corneau, Love Is Strange, with book by Craig Lucas, music by Daniel Messé and lyrics by Nathan Tysen.

Rodrick Dixon possesses a tenor voice of extraordinary range and versatility that has earned him the respect and attention of leading conductors, orchestras, and opera companies. He is currently performing with the Royal Opera Covent Garden. Mr. Dixon’s extensive television credits include: Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party VH1 (2017); Freedom Awards National Civil Rights Museum (2017); Noel, Noel Christmas Show Fox 13 (2017); Variety Children’s Charity TV show honoring CEO Julia Morley of Miss World in London (2016); Miss World Pageant in Washington, D.C. at the MGM (2016); Ordos, China (2012); An Evening with Vernon Jordan/HistoryMakers WETA, PBS (2014); the Variety Children’s Charity telethon in Des Moines, Iowa (2012 – present); The US Air Force 60th Anniversary Musical Celebration (2007); Cook, Dixon & Young Vol. 1 PBS Great Performances (2005); Washington Opera Gala at Constitution Hall (2003); The Mark Twain Awards Honoring Whoopi Goldberg at Kennedy Center (2002); Three Mo’ Tenors PBS Great Performances (2001) and My Favorite Broadway: The Love Songs at City Center (2000). Other TV appearances include: The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS/NPR (2006); The Jerry Lewis Telethon (2002-2003); Marshall Field’s Christmas Commercials (2002); TV One’s Christmas Specials (2006/07); WGN’s A Christmas Glory (2003 and 2006); The Tony Awards (1998); NBC’s Today Show; Good Morning America; The Rosie O’Donnell Show (2002); and The Wayne Brady Show. Rodrick Dixon’s musical theater and other theatrical concert credits include the original cast of Ragtime on Broadway/Chicago/Toronto, Show Boat at the Auditorium Theatre, Pops Concerts at Grant Park Music Festival, Chicagoland Pops Orchestra at the Rosemont Theater with Michael Feinstein, The Cincinnati Pops with Erich Kunzel and annual Christmas concerts of Too Hot To Handel at the Detroit Opera House and the Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre. The show made its Memphis Orpheum Theatre debut April 21st and 22nd in 2018. Recordings include (Sony/BMG), PBS Great Performances Cook, Dixon & Young Volume One released in (2005), Follow That Star Christmas CD (2003), Liam Lawton’s Sacred Land (2006) and Rodrick Dixon Live in Concert (2008) and a Christmas album with the Cincinnati Pops. Notable operatic engagements include Los Angeles Opera in the title role of Zemlinky’s Der Zwerg conducted by James Conlon and as Walther von der Vogelweide in Tannhauser. At Michigan Opera Theater and Todi Music Festival, Dixon appeared as Tonio in La Fille Du Regiment. He also appeared as Lenski in Todi’s production of Eugene Onegin . At Portland Opera, he performed the title role of Les Contes d’Hoffmann; Prince in Opera Columbus premiere of Vanqui ; Sportin’ Life in Virginia Opera’s Porgy & Bess; the Duke in Rigoletto for Cincinnati Opera; and Opera Southwest in the title role of Rossini’s Otello. On the concert stage, Rodrick Dixon is a regular guest of the Cincinnati May Festival, where he has performed Orff’s Carmina Burana, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass, Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells, Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses in Cincinnati and in New York’s Carnegie Hall. Other notable appearances include Los Angeles Philharmonic in the title role of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and directed by Peter Sellars. He reprised the role in the same production for the Sydney Arts Festival in Australia, directed by Mr. Sellars. His Ravinia Festival credits include The Bells and Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied. For Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center, Dixon appeared as Sportin’ Life in Robert Russell Bennett’s suite of music from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, conducted by Robert Porco. Other debuts include the Atlanta Symphony honoring Martin Luther King Jr. conducted by Robert Spano; the Vail Music Festival as tenor soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony conducted by Marin Alsop and The Longfellow Chorus documentary based on the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Mr. Dixon made his Choral Arts Society of Music debut as the Celebrant in Bernstein’s Mass performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He returned to Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra as tenor soloist in Delius’ A Mass of Life and to the Cincinnati May Festival as featured soloist in a new work by Alvin Singleton. He has also appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center as tenor soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Hannibal Lokumbe’s One Land, One River, One People. At St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson and RAI National Symphony in Torino, Italy, conducted by James Conlon, Dixon made his Der Fliegende Holländer debut as Erik. He was the tenor soloist for the Philadelphia Orchestra composer in residence, Hannibal Lokumbe, world premieres of Healing Tones and One Land, One River, One People, conducted by Yannick Nézet Séguin. He also performed in Lokumbe’s historic work Crucifixion Resurrection presented by the orchestra, honoring the nine church members who lost their lives during bible study in Charleston, SC. Recent notable engagements include the Cincinnati Symphony Beethoven Symphony No. 9 conducted by Louis Langree; the Madison Symphony Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass conducted by John DeMain; the Colorado Symphony and Sao Paolo State Symphony Orchestra in Brazil performances of Too Hot to Handel conducted by Marin Alsop. Future engagements include tenor soloist appearances in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; and Florida Orchestra conducted by Michael Francis. Dixon makes his Greensboro Symphony and Richmond Symphony debuts in the Beethoven Symphony No. 9 and reprises the title role of Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg for his Enescu Festival debut in Romania. Other orchestras with whom Mr. Dixon has appeared, include the Atlanta Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Pittsburgh Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Charleston Symphony, West Virginia Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Millennium Park, Elgin Symphony and the Concordia Orchestra at Lincoln Center. He appeared with Trilogy Opera and the Colour of Music Festival celebrating African American Composers. A gifted recitalist, Dixon earned rave reviews for his Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert broadcast honoring Roland Hayes on WFMT-FM/Chicago. He has also presented pre-concert recitals at the Cincinnati May Festival; completed a 30-city tour for Community Concerts as well as a duet concert “Following in the Footsteps” at Hampton University with soprano Alfreda Burke; with whom he has also appeared in duet recitals for the Umbria Music Festival in Italy, Anchorage, Los Angeles, Washington (D.C.), Tennessee, Detroit, Toronto, Dayton and Chicago.

Manuel Campos

Manuel Campos, Conductor, is a young director, educator and trainer of children's and youth orchestras, of Venezuelan origin, he carried out his musical studies within the State Foundation of the System of Children and Youth Orchestras of Venezuela, the Simón Bolívar Conservatory, University of the Arts of Venezuela, Conservatory Regional Music of Paris and the Latin American Violin Academy. Guest and regular director in several children's, youth and professional groups in Venezuela and Ecuador; He has been the creator of important projects, such as the “Antonio Neumane” Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the Guayaquil Youth Symphony Orchestra. He has recently participated as guest conductor of the Ecuadorian Philharmonic Orchestra, Cuenca Symphony Orchestra, Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra, Guayaquil Municipal Philharmonic Orchestra, Loja Symphony Orchestra, University of Cuenca Symphony Orchestra, Strasbourg Symphony Orchestra (France) . As of January 2017, he combines his pedagogical activity in the area of violin, with the musical direction of the project, Youth Symphony Orchestra of the Prefecture of Guayas, a group, with which he has carried out intense educational, social and cultural work, the length and breadth of the province. Last August, Maestro Campos participated as a guest conductor in the “Les Promenades Musicales de Lalouvesc” Festival in France, invited by the organization of the same name, which every year brings together great musicians from all over Europe, for 2018 His commitments include concerts in Europe, the United States and South America. Mr. Campos is offering a prize to a selected winner of the 2024 competition, to perform a concerto with orchestra in Ecuador with two symphony orchestras.

Stefania de Kenessey

Stefania de Kenessey’s music has been heard throughout New York City, from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to Joe’s Pub and LaMama; internationally, it has been performed in more than 35 countries, from Australia to Venezuela. Her output ranges from choral, vocal and operatic pieces to chamber and orchestral work, as well as scores for documentary films, theater and dance companies. She has written concertos for such virtuosos as trumpeter Chris Gekker and flutist Elizabeth Mann; she has had premieres with St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Singapore Symphony, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra and the Absolute Ensemble, conducted by Kristjan Järvi. Honored repeatedly with awards from ASCAP, her music is available on several CD’s, including Gotham Siren (North/South 2014), Keeping Time (Innova 2014), Of Water and Clouds (Tugboat Music 2012), Never Broken (Center Stage 2003), Sing for the Cure (TCC 2000) and Shades of Light, Shades of Dark (North/South 2000). Her music has been applauded for its “bright, lively quality…accessible melody, with touches of theater music and early rock drifting through it” (New York Times), full of “subtle shifts and changes” (Washington Post), “scintillating” and “sensitive” (American Record Guide).“Her melodic, many-layered, and deeply moving compositions…fully worthy to share a program or disc with masterpieces by Mozart or Brahms…deserve a lasting place in the modern repertoire.” (Fanfare) She has collaborated regularly with choreographer Ariel Grossman and Ariel Rivka Dance since 2018; her commissions (and co-commissions) have included In Her Words, Lead Me Alone, Mossy, Rhapsody in K, Rust, Mossy, She, Unorthodox and, most recently, What You Want. Her radical operatic reimagining of Tom Wolfe’s classic novel The Bonfire of the Vanities debuted at El Teatro at El Museo del Barrio in 2015. De Kenessey’s revisions were deep and far-reaching: she created a leading role for a Black female defense attorney and updated the story of greed and corruption all the way to the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange. An opera to some, a music theater piece to others, it was described as having “an appealing and easy-going pop style” (Opera Magazine) yet “caustically witty” (Financial Times). It was recently released on video by House of Film, with permission from Warner Bros. Entertainment. Her Spontaneous D-Combustion, a concerto for solo piano performed by pianist Mary Kathleen Ernst, is aired regularly on WQXR-FM in New York City. Her Microvids, a set of 19 piano miniatures written during the Covid 19 pandemic, has just been recorded by award-winning pianist Donna Weng Friedman and will be released in 2022. Menstrual Rosary, an off-beat video performance piece for two nuns wearing bright red lipstick, was commissioned to celebrate the launch of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Institute at The New School in 2021; it features a text by feminist philosopher Chiara Bottici and poet-provocateur Vanessa Place. De Kenessey is committed to helping women composers and musicians achieve parity in an unequal, biased world. She serves on the advisory board of The New Historia, an organization dedicated to recovering the unmarked legacies of women throughout the world. For The New School’s 100th anniversary, de Kenessey scored The Women’s Legacy Project, honoring a group of long-forgotten, newly-discovered women who were central to establishing the university. She is also the founding president of the International Alliance for Women in Music.
Stefania de Kenessey holds degrees from Yale (BA) and Princeton (MFA, PhD), and she has taught at The New School as a Professor of Music.

Max Barros

Max Barros, a Steinway Artist, has won wide acclaim as one of South America’s foremost pianists and one of the most versatile pianists of his generation. He has been praised by the critics for his elegant rhythm and rare musical refinement (The New York Times), his unfaltering brio (Gramophone), and his superb technique and sensibility (St. Louis Dispatch). Born in California and raised in Brazil, he has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Symphony Space, Kaufman Hall, and Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. In 1985, he won the “Soloist of the Year” Award by the São Paulo Music Critics Association and the “Distinguished Performer” award at the Palm Beach International Piano Competition. He has performed with the main symphony orchestras in Brazil and has toured South America with the Virtuosi di Praga and, as a chamber musician, has performed with the American String Quartet, Enso String Quartet, Quarteto di Venezia, Biava String Quartet, Esher String Quartet, and the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble. He founded the Barros Classical Consort, a period-instrument trio, and together with Stephanie Chase and Christine Gummere, he recorded the complete Trios of Luigi Boccherini and Stephen Storace on period instruments. He has recorded the North American premiere of Ronaldo Miranda’s Concertino for Piano and Strings, Amaral Vieira’s Piano Quintet with the Ensemble Capriccio and has recorded for Naxos the complete Piano Concertos by Camargo Guarnieri with conductor Thomas Conlin and the Warsaw Philharmonic, which won the “Discovery Award” from the Diapason magazine in France. With the Moskow Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Ada Pelleg, he recorded Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor. He has recently recorded Camargo Guarnieri’s complete Ponteios for Naxos and is in the process of recording the composer’s complete solo piano music in six volumes. The first volume of the series was chosen “CD of the Week” by the KDFC Classical Music Station in San Francisco for the week of 21 January 2013. In 2008, Mr. Barros made his debut at the Caramoor Festival performing Camargo Guarnieri’s Concertino for piano and orchestra with the St. Luke’s Orchestra under Michael Barrett. For the past twenty seasons, Mr. Barros has been the co-artistic director of the Ensemble for the Romantic Century (ERC), an organization that creates unique productions merging dramatic and fully staged scripts with music, and which has been hailed as one of the most innovative chamber music groups in New York. With long runs on off-Broadway, he performed with ERC’s Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon and Akhmatova: The Heart is not Made of Stone (Brooklyn Academy of Music-BAM, 2015 and 2016), both of which were critic’s pick for The New York Times, where Mr. Barros was praised for his “rapturous” performance of Rachmaninoff’s music. For his performance in The Sorrows of Young Werther (Symphony Space, 2015), Opera Today remarked, “Mr. Barros… made the piano drip with beauty and elegance, with an incomparable grace in his legato.” He can be heard on ERC’s DVD, The Young Arthur Rubinstein, performing works by composers whom Rubinstein knew in Paris at the beginning of his career. Mr. Barros studied in Brazil with Amaral Vieira, in Poland with Barbara Hesse-Bukowska, and in the United States with Antonio Guedes Barbosa, Richard Goode, Seymour Bernstein, and Malcolm Bilson (fortepiano).