Levente Török wins the 1st “Llíria City of Music” International Orchestra Conducting Competition

Levente Török has become the best young baton in the world, by winning the first prize of the 1^st“Llíria City of Music” International Orchestra Conducting Competition. The verdict of the jury, chaired by the Edetan Manolo Galduf, was announced during the Concert of the Bands of Llíria, which was held last night at Plaça Major, entailing the performances of the Banda Primitiva and the Unió Musical.

As the winner of the competition, he was awarded with the prize from the Llíria City Council, presented by the mayor Joanma Miguel and the Councillor for Music Pedro Vicente, and the winner also obtained the special award from AIE (management entity for music performers and executant musicians), which was handed by the president of this entity, maestro Luis Cobos.

Moreover, he will have the opportunity to be invited to conduct the collaborating orchestras of the competition, ten of the best professional orchestras in Spain: Spanish National Orchestra, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Valencia Orchestra, Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra, Málaga Philharmonic, Granada City Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Region of Murcia, Oviedo Filarmonía, Extremadura Symphony Orchestra and Seville Royal Symphony Orchestra.

The second prize went to the Russian conductor Luibov Nosova, while the third went to the Spanish Edmon Levon. Both prizes consist of a financial award and a diploma granted by AESDO, the Spanish Association of Orchestra Conductors. For its part, the special award AESDO went to Daniel Ros, while the award for promotion from the Fundació Territori i Partitura went to the American Andrew Crust.

The three finalists faced a double test: a rehearsal and a concert that was held yesterday evening at the theatre Unió Musical. They had to show their talent and their ability to work with pieces of different styles: a romantic opening, “Coriolan” by Beethoven; opera from classicism, with an aria and a recitative from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”; and contemporary music, with the premiere piece “Cantos” by the Valencian composer Francisco Coll.

Llíria thus ends a week in which the city has become a reference in the field of music. An exceptional jury, the artistic direction of Cristóbal Soler and a resident orchestra, made up of professional musicians from Llíria, have made it possible to organize the first edition of a competition that aims to become a benchmark.

Llíria City of Music once again re-launches international potential through this competition that has also had the collaboration of the UNESCO Creative Cities, Metz and Seville, and that has as well had a solidarity purpose through ‘Musicians Without Borders’ and its ‘Instrument Bank’ solidarity programme with which musical instruments will be collected for a group of young people in vulnerable situations in Santo Domingo, which is also part of the UNESCO Network, within their own cooperation objectives.

Bio Levente Török

After graduating in piano and composition at the Béla Bartók Music High School in Budapest, he studied conducting with Mark Stringer and Yuji Yuasa and repetition with Konrad Leitner at the University for Music and Performing Arts, Vienna.

Already with his 16 years, he worked for the Opera Studio of the Hungarian State Opera, led by Géza Oberfrank. In the season 2014/15 he worked as “Assistant of the Chordirector” at the Vienna State Opera. Additionally, he has been assistant conductor of internationally recognized festivals such as the Bade-Baden Festival or the Wagner Festival Wels.

Since 2018 he is the First Conductor of the Theatre Ulm, Germany. In 2019, he made his debut at the Hungarian State Opera.