Four finalists in the category horn

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Four candidates from Brazil, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg/France qualified for the final of the 57th International Instrumental Competition Markneukirchen in the horn category. After the third selection test, they were the best of the remaining 6 candidates. Due to an equality of points, four candidates were exceptionally admitted.

Achille Fait (Italy), Thomas Adrian Mittler (Germany), Damien Muller (Luxembourg/France) and Felipe Santos Freitas da Silva (Brazil) will now perform again in front of the seven-member jury in the final round on Friday, 13 May 2022 from 7 p.m. in the Musikhalle Markneukirchen and play for the prizes. They will once again demonstrate their exceptional skills with the Concerto for horn op. 150 by York Bowen. They will be accompanied by the Clara-Schumann-Philharmoniker Plauen-Zwickau under the direction of GMD Leo Siberski. Tickets for this event can be purchased at the box office for 3 euros.

In addition to the experienced ladies and gentlemen of the international jury, the audience is also called upon to vote for their favourite at the final of the tuba players on this evening and the evening before.

The audience prize-winner will then be announced at the prize-winners' concert on Saturday, 14 May 2022, 7.00 p.m. in the Markneukirchen Music Hall and, if it is a horn player, will receive a natural horn made by the Markneukirchen metal wind instrument maker Gerhard Wolfram. If the winner is a tuba player, he or she will receive a "Prof. Jörg Wachsmuth" mouthpiece series from Werner Chr. Schmidt, Markneukirchen. In both cases, the Sparkasse Vogtland will donate the prize worth up to € 2,500.

The finalists in the horn category
 
Achille Fait (Italy), born 20.12.1998

He was born in December 1998 in Rovereto (Italy) and began his horn studies at the age of 13. He’s currently studying in Weimar at the Hochschule für Musik with Professors Jörg Brückner, Maria Teiwes and Marc Gruber. He won many international competitions in Italy and abroad.
On various occasions he has performed with several orchestras and chamber music formations including the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, the European Union Youth Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and with the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala in Milano.
In april 2022 he won the audition for Academy at the Staatskapelle Berlin.

Thomas Adrian Mittler (Germany), born 25.03.2000

Thomas Adrian Mittler, born in Frankfurt (Main), learned to play the horn at the Mannheim Music School with Tobias Mahl and Lucas Weinspach. In spring 2016 he became a junior student at the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule with Will Sanders, before joining the horn class of Christian-Friedrich Dallmann at the Universität der Künste in Berlin in autumn 2017. He received further inspiration at master classes from Christian Lampert, Szabolcs Zempleni, Saar Berger and Phil Myers, among others.

Even before beginning his studies, Thomas Mittler became a member of the Baden-Württemberg and Berlin State Youth Orchestras and the Federal Youth Orchestra, where he played under conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle and Kirill Petrenko. At the 2021 German Music Competition, he reached the semi-finals; no horn player was admitted to the final. In autumn 2021 he was accepted into the German National Academic Foundation.

In addition to his activities as a horn player, Thomas Mittler is very intensively involved with the piano; in 2017, as a Kiwanis Prize winner of the city of Mannheim, he played the 3rd Piano Concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach with the Kurpfälzisches Kammerorchester. He is also intensively involved in pedagogical work and regularly coaches school orchestras in Berlin. He is also committed to the performance of modern music; in the ensemble a200 ms he interprets abstract visual references together with jazz musicians and the noise artist phonoschrank.

Damien Muller (Luxembourg), born 25.03.1999

Damien Muller was born in Luxembourg on 25 March 1999. In 2005, he started playing the horn with his first teacher, Mr. Steve Boehm. From September 2015, he was a student of Patrick Coljon at the Conservatory of Music of the City of Luxembourg, where he had already taken chamber music courses. In 2012, Damien won the "Petites Mains Symphoniques" competition in Paris. One year later, he was awarded the "Excellent" prize in the "1ère Division" of the UGDA (Union Grand-Duc Adolphe) competition in Luxembourg.

Excellent", the Gold Medal and the SACEM Prize. In 2014 he was again first prize winner at the "Petites Mains Symphoniques" competition in Paris.

In 2020, he completed his training at the Conservatoire in Luxembourg with the degree "Diplôme supérieur". Since September 2018, Damien has been studying in the class of Prof. Jörg Brückner at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar.

In addition, Damien gained numerous orchestral experiences: he was a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra in the summer of 2017 and from 2019 to 2021, a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie since 2018, an intern with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg from 2019 to 2021 and an academist with the Philharmonisches Orchester Erfurt since January 2022. Engagements as a substitute have taken him to the Staatskapelle Weimar and the Chemnitz Theatre.

Felipe Santos Freitas da Silva (Brazil), born 03.08.2001

Felipe Freitas began his horn studies at the age of 9 with Professor Ismael de Oliveira Jr. at the "Villa-Lobos and the Children Project" (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
From 2015 to 2019, he was a student with Professor Philip Doyle at the UFRJ (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) School of Music. In 2020 he became a Bachelor student with Professor Will Sanders at the Karlsruhe University of Music, who had already mentored him at the annual German-Brazilian Festival since 2013. In 2015

Felipe Freitas took first place in the II MB competition for young horn players. One year later he won the IV. National Competition for Young Soloists, where he performed as soloist with the Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2017, he achieved second place in the "Frizelle Soloist Competition" during the 49th International Horn Symposium. He won the IV. MB Competition for Youth Hornists in 2018 and received a scholarship at the OSESP Academy, followed by another one-month scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Felipe Freitas reached the semifinals of the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg in 2020 and the 2nd round of the ARD Music Competition in 2021. In the same year, he won the 31st "Concorso Internazionale Citta di Porcia" in Italy as well as 2nd prize at the Jeju Competition in Korea as a member of the Karlbrass Brass Quintet. Among the orchestras in which he has performed are the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, the orchestra of the festival "Frischluft und Musik Ortenau", the Petrobras Symphony Orchestra, the UFRJ Symphony Orchestra, the São Paulo State Orchestra and the São Paulo State Youth Orchestra.