2026 – South Korean pianist Sehyeok Son wins First Prize at the Prague Spring International Music Competition in 2026. He won the Viktor Kalabis & Zuzana Růžičková Award, the Prague City Prize, and the Bärenreiter Prize. (Watch his performance.)

 Czech foundation Chair Ales Brezina presents the award.

Son distinguished himself in numerous national and international competitions. His achievements include the Award for Best Performance of a Romantic Work at the Young Tchaikovsky International Competition, the Grand Prize at the Henle Piano Competition, and top prizes and awards at the Ewha & Kyunghyang Music Competition, Liszt Competition, Dong-A Junior Music Competition, and Yewon Music Competition. He was also selected as a scholarship recipient of the Samick Foundation. At the age of fourteen, he made his debut through the Kumho Prodigy Concert series, marking the beginning of his professional performing career.

After studying at Yewon School, Son continued his education at the Yehudi Menuhin School in the United Kingdom. He later attended the Colburn Music Academy on a full scholarship. He is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music degree at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he studies with Fabio Bidini.

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2025 — Japanese Cellist Yuya Mizuno wins the Viktor Kalabis and Zuzana Růžičková Prize at the Prague Spring Music Festival

 

Yuya Mizuno, currently studying with Clemens Hagen at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, previously completed the Soloist Diploma at the Toho Gakuen School of Music, studying under Sumiko Kurata, and also received instruction from Miklós Perényi at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. (Learn more about Yuya here.)

As a soloist, he has performed with leading orchestras including the Prague Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Osaka Symphony Orchestra, and Kyoto Symphony Orchestra.

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The Foundations annual prize is US#1,500 plus a grant to support future public performances, including compositions by Viktor Kalabis, by the winner.

Watch the Entire 2025 Program: Three Finalists

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2024 — Japanese Violinist Tsukushi Sasaki wins the Viktor Kalabis and Zuzana Růžičková Prize

at the Prague Spring Music Festival

The Japanese violinist Tsukushi Sasaki won the 1st prize at the 75th Prague Spring International Music Competition. Tsukushi was born 2000 in Tokyo where she began to play the violin at the age of three. In addition to the aforementioned the 1st prize, she won other prizes, including the 2nd prize and the audience prize at the 87th Music Competition of Japan and the 2nd prize at the Tokyo Music Competition.
Tsukushi has performed as a soloist with several orchestras, such as the Prague Philharmonia, Hofer Symphoniker and the other important orchestras in Japan. She will be invited to the Pau Casals Festival 2024 as a young artist.
She studied at Tokyo University of the Arts with Prof. Natsumi Tamai and took private lessons with Ms. Reiko Watanabe. Since April 2023, she continues her studies at Musikhochschule Lübeck with Prof. Heime Müller.

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The Foundation’s annual Prize is US$1,500 plus a grant to support future public performances, including compositions by Viktor Kalabis, by the winner.

Watch the Entire Program:

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2023 Winner – Franco-Dutch violist Sào Soulez Larivière won the 2023 Prague Spring Competition — see NEWS

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2022 Winner – Lilian Lefebvre from France awarded first place in the Competition for the Clarinet.

After an improvement prize obtained unanimously with the congratulations of the jury at the CRR of Paris in the class of Florent HEAU, Lilian Lefebvre was admitted in 2017 unanimously to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in the class of Pascal MORAGUÈS  where he obtained his bachelor with honors with the congratulations of the jury in July 2020.
He is the winner of various national and international competitions – and in May 2022 he received first prize and six special prizes at the international competition of the Prague Spring.
Lilian was invited in 2017 and 2019 to the musical meetings of Santander where he performed with Kojiro OKADA, Antonin LEFAURE, Richard WATKINS, Hans-Jörg SHELLENBERG (formerly solo oboe at the Berliner Philharmoniker) and participated in August 2021 in the famous festival of La Roque d’Anthéron alongside the violinist composer Elise BERTRAND, under the advice of the pianist Florent BOFFARD. Last July, in a duo with pianist Vincent MARTINET, they participated in  ” A summer in France” with Gauthier CAPUCON supported by Societe Generale, and then played in AJAM Festival in October 2021.
Lilian has performed on various occasions (festival of musical encounters in artois, festival under the Opalétuvier) alongside his brother Clément LEFEBVRE, renowned pianist.

There were three finalists in the May 2002 Prague Spring Music Festival competition and the final round can be watched on YouTube – and listen to the recording of the concert of all three finalists at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTXRvfIxcfw.

 

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2021 Winner –  The Arete Quartet from South Korea wins first place in the Competition for String Quartets.

The final round of the Prague Spring Festival Competition for String Quartets took place in May 2021. The winners performed compositions by Leoš Janáček’s and Ludwig van Beethoven. Arete Quartet: Seonghyeon Park, Chaeann Jeon, Donghwi Kim, Yoonsun Jang.

 

The Arete Quartet perform at the Rudolfinum concert hall.

The quartet, founded in September 2019, unanimously passed the Young Chamber Concert audition at Kumho Art Hall in the same year and debuted at Kumho Art Hall in Yonsei in September 2020. It was featured on KBS radio.

The Arete Quartet has performed at the Fraum Instrument Museum, Seocho Chamber Music Festival, Guro Classic Festival, Kukje Art Hall Series and The House Concert. Arete Quartet’s teachers are is Professor Christoph Poppen and Novus Quartet’s Jaeyoung Kim and it received a master class from Ébène Quartet.

Ales Brezina, chairman of the Czech Viktor Kalabis and Zuzana Ruzickova Foundation, and the Arete Quartet.