JUDGES 2025

grand prix judges 2025

Mark Cortale is a Broadway Producer who recently produced the critically acclaimed and Tony-nominated 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.

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.

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 2025 competition, to perform a concerto with orchestra in Ecuador with two symphony orchestras.

Joy Hermalyn is one of the most exciting performers on the music scene today, with notable successes in opera, operetta, and musical theater. She made her
operatic soprano debut as Minnie in Fanciulla del West with the Utah Festival Opera, having alternately performed the role of Abigail Adams there in 1776 during the same season. Ms. Hermalyn has performed extensively throughout the United States in diverse roles, among them Venus (Tannhauser), Witch (Hansel and Gretel), Cora (The Postman Always Rings Twice), and Abigail (The Crucible), with equally diverse companies from Anchorage to Austin to Kansas City to Tulsa. Other operatic highlights include leading roles in: Les Contes d’Hoffman, Madame Butterfly, Die Fledermaus, Der Rosenkavalier, Leoncavallo’s La Boheme, Il Trittico, Trouble in Tahiti, Faust, Cavalleria Rusticana, and in modern operas including: Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights (Stan Walden/Gertrude Stein), and The Consul. Ms. Hermalyn made her European operatic debut as the Countess/Page in Rigoletto in Spoleto, Italy, and has performed at the Festival d’Avignon in France. This season, Joy premiered the role of Roxie Claflin in Victoria Bond’s Mrs. President for Anchorage Opera and at the Thalia Theatre in NYC; and sang the lead role of the Little Dutch Boy in the premiere of John Sichel’s Little Dutch Opera at Raritan Valley Community College in NJ. On the concert stage, Ms. Hermalyn has sung leading roles at Lincoln Center with L’Opera Francais de New York under Yves Abel in Le Comte Ory, Les Deux
Avares and Barbe-Bleue. Ms. Hermalyn appeared as Euridice in a concert version of Orfeo at Alice Tully Hall with the Metropolitan Greek Chorale. As a
soloist, she has performed in concerts with the Westfield Symphony in Westfield, NJ. New Haven Symphony, Virginia Symphony, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Westchester Symphony, Bronx Arts Ensemble, Bergen Philharmonic (Englewood, NJ), and the Choral Society of the Hamptons in works including
Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s C Minor Mass, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and New Year’s Eve Vienna Pops. At the New York State Theatre, Ms. Hermalyn has
sung excerpts from the West Side Story Suite with the New York City Ballet. She made her Carnegie Hall debut as a soloist in the premiere of Norman dello Joio’s Canticle for the Child. Ms. Hermalyn completed the two-year run of the Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof performing and flying in the role of Fruma Sarah. She made her Broadway debut as the Chaperone in Cyrano–The Musical and subsequently appeared on Broadway in featured roles in Candide, A Christmas Carol, and the highly acclaimed Baz Luhrmann production of Puccini’s La Boheme in San Francisco and in New York. Ms. Hermalyn was seen Off-Broadway at the Roundabout in the premiere of Maury Yeston’s new musical entitled Death Takes a Holiday, for which she also can be heard on the original cast recording. Ms. Hermalyn has also appeared in featured roles in numerous Encores! productions at City Center including Music in the Air, Pajama Game, Bloomer Girl and as part of the All-Star Lineup for the Gala Re-dedication of City Center after renovations. Her favorite regional credits include: Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (opposite Norm Lewis), Mama Rose in Gypsy, Witch in Into the Woods, Ilona in She Loves Me, Abigail Adams in 1776, the Old Lady in Candide and Adelaide in Guys and Dolls. A frequent performer at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, she was featured in Sweeney Todd with George Hearn in the title role, and returned for Meg Brockie in Brigadoon and Nettie Fowler in Carousel. Ms. Hermalyn returned to the Utah Festival Opera Company in Logan, Utah to perform the roles of Annie in Annie Get Your Gun and Abigail in The Crucible in repertory. Ms. Hermalyn has performed all of the major mezzo-soprano roles of Gilbert & Sullivan (& many soprano roles!) including Ruth, Buttercup and Katisha, hundreds of times in New York and on tour around America – most recently performing the role of Katisha in The Mikado for Dayton Opera. Recent and future engagements include: Sister Berthe in The Sound of Music at
Carnegie Hall (with Stephanie Blythe); Anchorage Opera for Mrs. President, a new opera by Victoria Bond; Rigoletto (Maddalena) – Enlow Hall, Union, NJ;
Threepenny Opera (Jenny) at the Aaron Copland School of Music, NYC in concert; Concerts in Orliac, France and Calabria, Italy entitled “Evviva Salvatore
Guaragna!! – The Songs of Harry Warren”; readings of several new musicals by Ahrens and Flaherty (Anastasia), Rupert Holmes, Sheldon Harnick and a
musicalized version of Enchanted April; and a concert with her percussionist husband “Beauty and the Beat – from Cage to Ginsberg to Auden,” at Kean
University. Ms. Hermalyn has a featured role in Kristina, a sung-thru musical by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (ABBA), has performed the work at
Carnegie Hall in New York, the Royal Albert Hall in London and can be heard on the live CD.
In addition to degrees from New York University (B.S. – Music and French) and Mannes College of Music (Master of Music), Ms. Hermalyn studied art and
translation at La Sorbonne, and acting from Wesley Balk, Richard Schechner and Charles Kakatsakis in New York. She is on the faculty of Kean University in
Union, New Jersey as a master voice teacher and is in demand at Universities around the country for her solo concert/master classes on the “Art of the
Crossover Singer.”

Yang Jin is a distinguished Pipa soloist, graduating from the renowned Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In 2004, she earned the Award in China's prestigious Golden Bell Award for Music. She collaborates with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and has performed at esteemed venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and Harris Theater. Jin serves as an instructor at the University of Delaware Master Players Concert & Festival and as a judge for the Hummingbird International Music Competition at the Eastman School of Music. Since 2013, Yang Jin has led various crossover ensembles, including the Pittsburgh Purple Bamboo Music Ensemble, Helio Phoenix Trio, HarmoniZing, Afro Yaqui Music Collective, J4, and Summer Wind Jazz Ensemble.