The Prize Nobody Won for Sixteen Years. In Birmingham, the Svetlanov Competition Gave Its First Prize for Only the Second Time in Six Editions, and the Orchestra Voted for the Same Conductor.

The Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition has been held six times since 2007, in Luxembourg, Montpellier, Paris twice, Monte-Carlo and now Birmingham. Its rules say the jury "shall not be obliged to award all prizes," and in four of the six editions no first prize is recorded. On the evening of Sunday 6 September 2026, at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, after four finalists had conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the jury gave one. It went to Michal Oren, an Israeli conductor listed by the competition as 29, together with €20,000 and, separately, the prize the CBSO's own musicians vote on, which carries an invitation to conduct the orchestra in 2027–28.

It was the second time in four months that a British orchestra's players had voted for her. In April the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's musicians chose Oren as their Calleva Assistant Conductor from more than 140 applicants, after two days of auditions in Poole. That sequence, a player vote in Bournemouth in the spring and a player vote in Birmingham in the autumn, is the part of this result that no press release has assembled, and it is the reason to read the ledger below.

The document

The competition published its laureates on the night, and its awards page sets out what each prize is.

The road to that table, from the competition's own account and the CBSO's announcement: nearly 350 applications from 54 countries; 18 candidates selected, aged 21 to 40 and averaging about 32, from 15 nationalities; a closed preliminary round at the CBSO Centre on 3 and 4 September; eight semi-finalists at Symphony Hall on 5 September; four finalists on 6 September, which the competition notes was the 98th anniversary of Svetlanov's birth. The jury was chaired by Bertrand de Billy, with Mauro Bucarelli, Christophe Ghristi, Matthias Goerne, Sascha Goetzel, Paul Hughes, Ion Marin, Matthias Naske, Deborah Polaski and Kazuki Yamada, the CBSO's music director; the artistic director is René Koering. For the first time, the semi-finals and final were open to the public and streamed on medici.tv, with seats at Symphony Hall from £5 to £39, £10 for ages 16 to 25 and free for under-16s.

The compulsory repertoire, from the hall's listing: in the semi-final, the Prelude to Act III of Wagner's Lohengrin, the Sprecher and Tamino scene from The Magic Flute, and the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique; in the final, the Largo from Svetlanov's own Symphony, a specially commissioned contemporary work of about six minutes, and one of three works, from a set list of nine symphonies and Elgar's Enigma Variations, that each candidate named in the application, the jury choosing which.

The ledger of six editions

Here is the fact that the competition's edition pages record.

Sources: the competition's pages for 2007, 2010, 2014 and 2018; HelloMonaco, 11 June 2022 for the 5th; the 2026 laureates page. For 2007, 2014 and 2018 the competition's pages list no first-prize winner; for 2022 HelloMonaco records that "First and third prizes were not awarded."

Two first prizes in nineteen years. The names on the rest of the table explain why the competition can afford that: Poga, the 2010 winner, was chief conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra from 2021 until the end of the 2025–26 season; Hindoyan, a 2010 diploma, is chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic through 2028 and music director of LA Opera from this summer; Treviño, the other 2010 diploma, led the Basque National Orchestra from 2017; Kuokman is resident conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Ng has been associate conductor of the Seoul Philharmonic, Ibrahimov is chief conductor of the Neue Philharmonie München, and Altstaedt and Gerts have held posts in Innsbruck and at the Estonian National Opera. The competition's own claim is that "over 80% of the participants" go on to international conducting careers, a figure it applies to participants, "not just the prize winners." On this record a Svetlanov diploma has often been followed by a post. Which is exactly why an actual first prize, given by a jury of this kind, is news.

The two votes

The prize with no cheque attached is arguably the one that says most. The CBSO's musicians, who had played for all 18 candidates over four days, voted Oren their Orchestra's Prize, an invitation to return and conduct them in a season concert in 2027–28. In April, at the other end of England, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's musicians had done the same thing by a different route. Colin's Column and OperaWire reported the BSO's announcement of 28 April 2026: more than 140 applications for the Calleva Assistant Conductor post, seven shortlisted candidates auditioning over two days at the Lighthouse in Poole, and "the winner was selected by a vote from the Orchestra's musicians." Oren won; Oliver Cope was placed second; Jacobus de Jager and Max Todes were the other semi-finalists. The post is a twelve-month bursary-supported training position from September 2026, funded by the Calleva Foundation in memory of Jack Butt, working with the BSO's chief conductor Mark Wigglesworth and its guest conductors.

Two orchestras, two player votes, one conductor, inside four months. A jury's verdict can be argued with; an orchestra's vote, cast by the musicians who have just played under someone, is a different kind of verdict, and in 2026 two orchestras reached the same one. Oren's own line on the Bournemouth post, as quoted by OperaWire, was the assistant conductor's creed: "As a young conductor you need time on the podium to grow, and I am deeply grateful to have this opportunity with the BSO."

The three laureates

Michal Oren. From Tel Aviv, a clarinettist as well as a conductor. Her biography, as carried with the BSO announcement and on her own site: bachelor's degrees in orchestral conducting and clarinet at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University; a master's in conducting at the Royal College of Music in London as a Victor and Lilian Hochhauser scholar with a full scholarship; professional studies with Sian Edwards at the Royal Academy of Music, holding the Bianca Falcone Sorrell Award; Female Conductor Trainee at Opera North in 2024–25; assistant work with the Royal Northern Sinfonia; one of six semi-finalists selected for the 80th Concours de Genève, whose conducting rounds are held in November 2026. Her own site adds the 2024 Young Conductors' Showcase with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Museum Orchestra she founded at the Petach Tikva Museum of Art. The competition's candidate list gives her age as 29; Slipped Disc, reporting the result, gave 28.

Mikhail Mering. Israeli, 34 by the competition's list, a clarinettist who plays in the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion and the Israeli Opera, according to his World Federation of International Music Competitions profile. His competition record before Birmingham: semi-finalist at the Tokyo International Music Competition for Conducting in 2021, third prize at the Hong Kong International Conducting Competition in March 2023, third prize at the Fitelberg competition in Katowice in 2023. The profile also records him as assistant to Evan Rogister on a Metropolitan Opera and Bolshoi co-production of Lohengrin. Second prize in Birmingham is the highest placing on that list.

Rui Miguel Marques. Portuguese, 21, the youngest of the 18, and the finalist the public chose twice, in the hall and online. His own biography has him as assistant conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra since January 2025, studying at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo with Ole Kristian Ruud after four years with Timothy Henty and earlier training with Alexandre Madeira and Marta Falcão. Stavanger's chief conductor for the whole of his tenure so far was Andris Poga, whose contract ran from 2021 to the end of the 2025–26 season and who is the only other person ever to win the Svetlanov first prize. Poga was not on the 2026 jury. The 2010 winner's assistant took third in 2026.

A year ago it was a listing

Every line above began as an open call. The Svetlanov application window ran from 1 March to 15 April 2026, later extended to 22 April, and drew nearly 350 applications. The Bournemouth post was advertised in the winter and drew more than 140. The CBSO's Orchestra's Prize is an engagement that did not exist until Sunday night and will appear in a 2027–28 season announcement. Cadenza's competitions board lists the international conducting competitions, among them the Fitelberg competition in Katowice where Mering placed third in 2023 and the Svetlanov itself, with their cycles and links to the official calls, and the jobs board carries conducting posts as orchestras advertise them, free to musicians. The Svetlanov is held roughly every four years and has moved between cities, with Paris hosting twice; where the seventh edition will be, and when, the competition has not yet announced.

If you go

• The CBSO's 2027–28 season, in which Oren will conduct her Orchestra's Prize concert, will be announced in due course on cbso.co.uk.
• The semi-finals and final were streamed on medici.tv, where the competition says the rounds can be watched.
• Oren's first Bournemouth season runs from September 2026 at bsolive.com.

In four of six editions no first prize was awarded, and the alumni list suggests that withholding it cost nobody a career. On Sunday the jury broke the habit, and the orchestra it was judging agreed with it. The question the next edition will be asked, wherever it is held, is whether 2026 was a change in the standard or a change in the field.

Sources: Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition, laureates of the 6th edition; awards page; press conference on the selected candidates, 9 June 2026; selected candidates; rounds and broadcast; edition pages for 2007, 2010, 2014, 2018; HelloMonaco, 11 June 2022; CBSO press release, 19 November 2025; B:Music, event and repertoire; World Federation of International Music Competitions, competition page; Colin's Column, 28 April 2026; OperaWire, 3 May 2026; Slipped Disc, 28 April 2026; Slipped Disc, 7 September 2026; Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Calleva competition; Michal Oren; WFIMC, Mikhail Mering; Rui Miguel Marques; Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Andris Poga; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Hindoyan extension; Euskadiko Orkestra, Treviño appointment; Hong Kong Philharmonic, Lio Kuokman; Seoul Philharmonic, Wilson Ng; Productions Sarfati, Fuad Ibrahimov.

Cover photograph: Symphony Hall, Birmingham, from the Grand Tier, where the semi-finals and final of the 6th Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition were held on 5 and 6 September 2026. JimmyGuano, CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.