Selected from 200 candidates from all over the world, the chosen talents represent 12 nations and 3 continents

They will compete from October 1 to 3 at the Auditorium di Milano Fondazione Cariplo, with the Final on October 4 at the Teatro Coccia in Novara, in a concert open to the public

4 città invisibili by Andrei Octavian Popescu is the winning piece of the Call for Composers, selected from 116 original scores submitted, the highest number in the history of the Competition

Honorable Mention for the young sixteen-year-old composer Thor Lafuente Pacsi, author of the piece A Small Symphony in 3 Movements.

Main Sponsor of the XIV edition of the Cantelli Competition is Banca Intesa

A new generation of orchestral conductors is preparing to experience the XIV edition of the Cantelli Competition. The names of the competitors admitted to the preliminary rounds of the prestigious international competition promoted by the Fondazione Teatro Coccia of Novara, dedicated to young conducting talents aged between 18 and 35, were announced today. The XIV edition is scheduled to take place between Milan and Novara from October 1 to 4, 2026. Selected from 200 applications coming from 42 countries, the chosen conductors represent 12 nations distributed across 3 continents. This result testifies to the growing authority of the competition dedicated to the memory of the Novara-born conductor Guido Cantelli—whose 70th anniversary of death is being commemorated this year—in the global musical landscape, and to its ability to attract young people from profoundly different cultural and artistic traditions. This positioning is further confirmed by the entry of the International Conducting Competition “Guido Cantelli” into the World Federation of International Music Competitions—the leading international network of institutions dedicated to discovering and promoting today’s musical talents. The Main Sponsor of the XIV edition is Banca Intesa.

“The Cantelli Prize represents one of the highest expressions of Novara’s cultural identity and a heritage that our city shares with the world,” says the Mayor of Novara, Alessandro Canelli. “The numbers of this XIV edition confirm the extraordinary ability of the Prize to attract the best young international musical talents. In the seventieth anniversary of Guido Cantelli’s death, Novara renews its bond with a figure who continues to be a symbol of excellence, passion, and artistic vision. Seeing young conductors and composers from every continent compete in the name of Cantelli means giving new life to his legacy and projecting it into the future. The Teatro Coccia confirms itself as a prestigious place where opportunities, relationships, and artistic paths are created that will leave a mark on the global cultural landscape.”

“What moves me most are not the numbers, however extraordinary, but the stories those numbers represent,” says the Artistic Director of the Cantelli Competition, Corinne Baroni. “Two hundred conductors from forty-two countries and one hundred and sixteen composers who decided to entrust their music to the Cantelli Competition describe an international community that sees this competition as a place of opportunity, growth, and encounter. Preserving Guido Cantelli’s legacy today means investing in the future, offering concrete opportunities, and contributing to the construction of the repertoire of tomorrow. This is perhaps the deepest meaning of the Prize: not to celebrate the past, but to transform it into a window open onto the future.”

The selection of candidates, carried out on the basis of video recordings, was conducted by the conductors Riccardo Frizza, Artistic Consultant of the Cantelli Competition , Music Director and Artistic Director of the Donizetti Opera in Bergamo and Honorary Conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Didier de Cottignies, Artistic Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo.

The young conductors admitted to the preliminary rounds are: Nicolò Azzena (33 years old, Italy), Sieva Borzak (29 years old, Italy), Jooyoung Florian Chang (29 years old, Austria), Ulysse Derrien (23 years old, France), Etienne Ferrer (33 years old, France), Giovanni Fanizza (30 years old, Italy), Rémi Geniet (34 years old, France), Guro Haugli (32 years old, Norway), Feifan Jiang (25 years old, China), Daniel Seonggeun Kim (30 years old, Germany), Henry Kennedy (30 years old, United Kingdom), Yuta Kobayashi (29 years old, Japan), Dongjun Lee (29 years old, South Korea), Mauro Mariani (33 years old, Italy), Alfonso Piacentini (31 years old, Puerto Rico), Ondřej Soukup (31 years old, Czech Republic), Arseniy Shkaptsov (33 years old, Switzerland), Marco Orazio Vallone (24 years old, Italy).

With 5 candidates in the competition, Italy confirms itself as the most represented country (around 28%), followed by the rest of Europe (excluding Italy) with 9 conductors (around 50%) and Asia with 3 candidates (17%).

From this year, the Cantelli Competition has also started a collaboration with the International Competition “Città di Brescia – Giancarlo Facchinetti”, recognizing their shared vocation for contemporary repertoire and for the training of conductors called to engage with the languages of our time. Thanks to this synergy, the young conductor Alexander Mackinder (30 years old, United Kingdom), winner of the 2025 Facchinetti Competition, is also directly admitted to the preliminary rounds of the Competition. In total, therefore, the candidates competing in the autumn preliminary rounds of the Competition are 19.

“As Artistic Consultant and juror of the XIV edition of the Competition dedicated to Guido Cantelli, I feel a strong responsibility to identify those I consider undisputed talents, choosing them from a pool of candidates that again this year has shown significant numbers and a level that confirms the strong attractiveness of the competition,” says Riccardo Frizza. “The Competition is a way to overcome the still-living sense of astonishment when thinking about what Cantelli would have given to music had he not been tragically stopped by fate. Thus, the one who remains forever the youngest of the great 20th-century conductors continues to live his legend in the aspirations, talent, and ambition of many young conductors from all over the world here in Novara, in the city and theatre that carefully preserve his memory.”

The Main Jury will be chaired by Donato Renzetti, joined by Roanna Gibson (Concerts & Planning Director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra), Didier de Cottignies (Artistic Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo), Riccardo Frizza (Artistic Consultant of the Cantelli Competition, Music Director and Artistic Director of the Donizetti Opera in Bergamo, as well as Honorary Conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir), Patrick Fournillier (Music Director of the National Opera of Warsaw Teatr Wielki), Cristina Rocca (Vice President of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), Corrado Rovaris (Music Director of Opera Philadelphia), and Ryuichiro Sonoda (Artistic Director of Fujisawa City Opera and Principal Conductor of the Pacific Philharmonia Tokyo).

“I return today to the role of Jury President for the second time after the 2020 edition with a deep sense of meaning,” says Donato Renzetti. “Guido Cantelli has been an absolute reference figure since my childhood, first through my father’s experience, a timpanist admitted to play with the Maestro, and then through my personal experience, with the victory of the Competition in 1980. What I look for in a young conductor is not only technical preparation, but above all passion for the work, knowledge of the score, and a recognizable musical personality on the podium. The Jury’s role is precisely to identify these qualities, going beyond the most immediate aspect of conducting gesture to grasp the candidates’ ability to build and transmit a musical thought, and to establish a deep relationship with the orchestra. The Cantelli Competition has represented, and continues to represent, one of the most important international events for young conductors, and I am happy to contribute once again to this path.”

Alongside the main jury there are also two technical juries – the Critics’ Jury, composed of journalists Camille De Rijck (Forum Opéra), Enrico Girardi (Corriere della Sera), and Carla Moreni (Il Sole 24 Ore), and the Management and Agencies Jury, formed by agents Lorenzo Baldrighi (Lorenzo Baldrighi Artists Management), Mark Hildrew (Askonas Holt), and Nicholas Mathias (IMG Artists) – as well as two juries representing the link between the Prize and its local territory – the City Jury, composed of Luca Piantanida (Councillor for Cultural and Tourism Policies of the Municipality of Novara), Alessandra Aina (Director of the “Guido Cantelli” Conservatory of Novara), and Ettore Borri (President of the “Vittorio Cocito” Friends of Music Association), and the Friends of Teatro Coccia Jury, formed by Cinzia Fenini and a group of members. Finally, there is also the Youth Jury, bringing together students of the “Guido Cantelli” Conservatory of Novara and the “Backstage Youth” group, composed of music enthusiasts under 35 known as Ambassadors of Teatro Coccia among younger audiences.

In addition to the conductor candidates admitted to the competition rounds, the winning composition of the 2026 Call for Composers has also been selected, launched by the Teatro Coccia of Novara within the framework of the Cantelli Competition and open to composers of any gender and age. This year’s Call recorded the highest number of submissions in the history of the Prize: 116 original scores from 31 countries were received. This represents an increase of about 70% compared to the previous edition and outlines a broad and international creative landscape, with works from Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania written by composers aged between 16 and 70.

The scores were evaluated by the technical commission chaired by the Artistic Director of the Cantelli Competition, Corinne Baroni, and composed of composers Alberto Cara, Cristian Carrara, Marco Taralli, and conductor Alessandro Calcagnile. The winning piece is 4 città invisibili by Andrei Octavian Popescu, a 48-year-old Italian composer.

This is the jury’s motivation: “Popescu’s score convinced for the solidity of its writing, the charm of its compositional language, and its full awareness of the function of the piece within the Prize: a work capable of offering young conductors an engaging interpretative challenge while also speaking to the audience with immediacy and authenticity.”

The winning score will become part of the official competition program and will be performed by the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, partner of the Cantelli Competition, conducted by the young finalists in the final concert, offering the audience the world premiere of a new musical work conceived specifically for this edition. The Call for Composers includes a cash prize of €3,000 and is supported by Techbau.

Among the submissions received this year, a particularly significant case is also noted: the original score A Small Symphony in 3 Movements submitted by the very young Filipino composer Thor Lafuente Pacsi, only sixteen years old. “It is a sign of hope coming from the future, from a boy who chose to embark on one of the longest and most demanding paths that music can offer, facing it with talent, dedication, and extraordinary determination,” says Baroni. For this reason, the Artistic Direction decided to award Thor Lafuente Pacsi a Special Honorable Mention as encouragement to continue along the path of composition “with the same curiosity, perseverance, and passion that already emerge today from his music.”

The XIV edition of the Cantelli Competition will enter its core phase in autumn. The selected conductors will compete over four consecutive days conducting the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, partner of the Competition, in front of an international jury of the highest level and a total prize fund of €34,000. Specifically, the preliminary and semifinal rounds will take place from October 1 to 3 at the Auditorium di Milano Fondazione Cariplo. The final will be held on October 4 at the Teatro Coccia in Novara, in the form of a public concert—the tickets for which are already available on the Foundation’s website. On this final day of competition, the conductors will face a program including the Overture from Bellini’s Norma, the symphonic poem Don Juan (Op. 20) by Richard Strauss, Symphony No. 9 in E minor “From the New World” Op. 95 by Dvořák, and the aforementioned winning score of the Call for Composers.

A total of nine prizes will be awarded during the final evening of October 4. The Main Jury will award the First Prize, worth €12,000 and supported by the Fondazione Banca Popolare di Novara, the Second Prize, worth €8,000 and supported by ArteKasa, and the Third Prize, worth €5,000 supported by Comoli Ferrari. There will also be the Critics’ Jury Prize of €2,000 supported by Lanzo & Partners; the Management and Agencies Jury Prize of €2,000 supported by Itof; the Youth Jury – Empathy Prize of €2,000 supported by Mariella Enoc; the City Prize of €1,500 supported by Novara Businessmen Club; the Friends of Teatro Coccia Jury Prize of €1,500 supported by the Friends of Teatro Coccia themselves; the Cantelli Competition Patron Association and CM di Claudio Mazzucchelli support the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano’s participation in the XIV edition of the Prize, whose orchestra musicians will also award the Orchestra Prize during the final evening, selecting the most deserving candidate. Finally, Mirato will support the Youth Jury Project for the 2026/2028 period, while Righetti Mobili will support logistics for the Youth Jury during the XIV edition.

Main Sponsor is Banca Intesa.

Guido Cantelli, born in Novara on April 27, 1920, conducted his final concert at Teatro Coccia on November 17, 1956, with the La Scala Orchestra, of which he had been appointed principal conductor just the day before. A few days later, on the night between November 23 and 24, the plane that was to take him to New York crashed shortly after takeoff from Paris Orly Airport. He was just over thirty-five years old, yet already one of the most important conductors of the second half of the 20th century. To honor his memory, in 1961 the Provincial Tourism Board of Novara established the International “Guido Cantelli” Prize for young conductors, which in its first ten editions up to 1980 crowned some of the future leading figures of conducting: an honor roll that, besides Riccardo Muti (winner in 1967), includes Eliahu Inbal (1963), Ádám Fischer and Lothar Zagrosek (1973), Hubert Soudant (1975), and Donato Renzetti (1980). After a forty-year hiatus, thanks to the commitment of the Director of Teatro Coccia Corinne Baroni, the Cantelli Prize resumed in 2020 with three editions that reaffirmed its history, presenting among its selected candidates young talents now pursuing rising international careers such as Tianyi Lu (winner of the 11th edition in 2020), Min Gyu Song (winner of the 13th edition in 2024), Bertie Baigent, Diego Ceretta, Dmitry Matvienko, Cristian Spătaru, and Toby Thatcher.

Photo credits: Ambra Radaelli, Corinne Baroni, and Mariella Enoc at the presentation of the Cantelli Prize © Digitales Munari