B&S Special prize at the 15th artists competition

Twenty seven participants from all over the world met at the "Janácek" Brünn Academy of Arts, e.g. from Colombia, Portugal, Mexico, Sweden, Hungary, France, Singapore and China, just to name some nations. In the first round the young tuba students had to demonstrate their abilities by playing Paul Hindemith’s "Sonata", Anthony Plog's "3 miniatures" and Dmitri Shostakovich’s "Adagio" from the ballet "The light rivulet".

After the 3rd final round in which the "Concerto" for tuba and piano by Ralph Vaughan Williams was a must and where among others also the "Concerto" by Roland Szentpáli was presented, the jury with international members under the chairmanship of Prof. Melvin Culberstone chose the 3 prize winners. The 1st prize was awarded to Florian Coutet from France. The 2nd prize had to be shared by the two French Bastien Dubosc and Pierrick Fournès. Jiri Genrt from the Czech Republic came in third. At this point congratulations from the B&S /MELTON Group for this outstanding performance.

A special prize was awarded to a young Russian student from Moscow who surprised the jury and the competitors by playing as only Not-F-Tuba player an old 3-valve BBb-tuba in a very bad state. Even if this musically highly talented tuba-player named Fedor Shagov could not proceed to the 2nd round and was visibly disappointed, he could rejoice in a brand new B&S tuba. In the presence of all participants, Vincent Ribes, supporting the artists in the name of the B & S GmbH, in a solemn and moving moment handed over the successful F-tuba model 3099/2W to him.

Photo from right to left:
Mel Culbertson (Head of the jury of the competition - France/USA), Jean-Pierre Mathez (juror - Switzerland), Vincent Ribes (B&S Artist Relationship Manager), Fedor Shagov (winner of special prize - Russia), Pavel Trnka (juror - Czech Republic), Paul Halwax (juror - Austria), Markus Theinert (juror - Germany)