The Antonín Dvořák International Radio Competition for Young Musicians, Concertino Praga, will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2026. The jubilee edition will be exceptional not only for its tradition but also for its scope: the organisers have decided to keep the wind category in the competition, despite the original plan to focus solely on strings and keyboard instruments.
“An exceptional standard among the wind category participants in 2025 led us to this decision,” says Kateřina Konopásková, Director of Corporate Support and External Relations at Czech Radio, who oversees the competition on behalf of Czech Radio. “It would be a shame not to give talented young wind players a chance in this anniversary year, especially as their commitment and musical maturity have accompanied Concertino for decades,” adds Kateřina Konopásková.
Robert Kolář, Director of the co-organising Academy of Classical Music, adds: “Such a significant anniversary deserves to present the full disciplinary breadth of the competition, which—thanks also to its inclusion in the Dvořák Prague Festival programme—has been consolidating its international prestige over the long term.”
Two solo categories in the anniversary year
Throughout its history—closely intertwined with that of Czech Radio—Concertino Praga has undergone a number of changes. From 2020, when the Academy of Classical Music became co-organiser, the competition format featured a single combined category for all instruments, complemented every two years by a chamber-music competition.
From 2025 a new model was introduced: strings & keyboard every year, with the wind category on a two-year cycle. Originally, therefore, 2026 was to be reserved for strings and keyboard only. In view of the exceptional interest from competitors, the high standard of the wind section and the notable anniversary, the organisers have decided that next year everyone will have the opportunity—strings, keyboard and winds.
Who can apply
Wind instruments — flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, trumpet, horn, trombone
String and keyboard instruments — piano, violin, viola, cello, harp, accordion
All instruments are judged together within their respective categories.
Applications & details
The application deadline for the 2026 edition is 31 March 2026.
Full conditions and the application form are available at: concertino.rozhlas.cz.
In the thrilling final of the 59th edition of the Antonín Dvořák International Radio Competition for Young Musicians, Concertino Praga, held on 12 and 13 September, two South Korean performers took the top honours: oboist Raeun Hong and violinist Yeonah Kim, who at just 11 became the youngest laureate in the competition’s history. For her performance, Raeun Hong chose Julius Rietz’s Concert Piece for Oboe and Orchestra, while Yeonah Kim dazzled with her interpretation of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
From 59 submissions spanning three continents, four musicians advanced to the final in the wind category and four in the keyboard & string category. Their performances were assessed by an international jury comprising trumpeter Martin Angerer, oboist Jana Brožková, pianist Ian Fountain, clarinettist Andrea Götsch, accordionist Ladislav Horák, cellist Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, violinists Milan Šetena and Dmitry Sitkovetsky, flautist Henrik Wiese, and EBU representative Octavia Galescu.
The wind final took place on 12 September at Bethlehem Chapel, where the finalists were accompanied by the Pardubice Chamber Philharmonic under its Chief Conductor Vahan Mardirossian. Competing for the favour of the jury and audience were Italian flautist Chantal Ramona Veit, Spanish saxophonist Víctor Amadeu Puigbò Rincón, South Korean oboist Raeun Hong, and Czech clarinettist Otakar Antonín Štefan.
A day later the competition moved to the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum, where the finalists in the keyboard and string category performed: Latvian pianist Matvejs Fokins, South Korean violinist Yeonah Kim, Bulgarian cellist Darin Lambrev and Czech accordionist Viktor Stocker. Their performances were supported by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra under Tomáš Brauner. Both evenings were traditionally opened by the Czech Radio Children’s Choir led by Věra Hrdinková, with Adam Michna of Otradovice’s Andělské přátelství, the signature tune of Concertino Praga.
The final concerts were broadcast live on Czech Radio Vltava. The station will also air the laureates’ concert from the South Bohemian Concertino Praga Festival in Písek, while the other festival concerts will be offered from recordings.
Results overview
Wind instruments
1st prize: Raeun Hong (2009), oboe (South Korea)
2nd prize: Víctor Amadeu Puigbò Rincón (2007), saxophone (Spain)
3rd prize: Chantal Ramona Veit (2008), flute (Italy)
Honourable Mention, 1st class: Otakar Antonín Štefan (2008), clarinet (Czech Republic)
Honourable Mention, 2nd class: Levente Bubreg (2008), bassoon (Austria)
Audience Prize: Otakar Antonín Štefan
Keyboard and string instruments
1st prize: Yeonah Kim (2014), violin (South Korea)
2nd prize: Viktor Stocker (2009), accordion (Czech Republic)
3rd prize: Darin Lambrev (2010), cello (Bulgaria)
Honourable Mention, 1st class: Matvejs Fokins (2010), piano (Latvia)
Honourable Mention, 2nd class: Naďa Strnadová (2009), cello (Czech Republic)
Audience Prize: Viktor Stocker
Special prizes
EMCY Prize: Viktor Stocker
Karel Komárek Family Foundation Prize for the most successful Czech participant: Viktor Stocker
Bohuslav Martinů Foundation Prize: Chantal Ramona Veit
Viktor Kalabis and Zuzana Růžičková Foundation Prize: Matvejs Fokins
Magdalena Kožená Endowment Fund Prize: Viktor Stocker
Scholarships and awards
The winners of both categories received a €5,000 scholarship from the Karel Komárek Family Foundation and the Czech Radio Prize in the form of a professional CD recording. The other finalists were awarded scholarships of €2,800 (Karel Komárek Family Foundation), €1,700 (Bulb) and €700 (Bärenreiter publishing house and the Život umělce Foundation).
Festival in South Bohemia
The South Bohemian Concertino Praga Festival will take place on 15–19 September in Písek, Bechyně, Tábor and Jindřichův Hradec. The programme also includes an educational concert for children from Jindřichův Hradec schools as part of Czech Radio’s Vlnohraní project.
Performances by the 2025 finalists were evaluated by the jury in the following line-up:
More information about the jurors can be found on the Concertino Praga website.
Concertino Praga was founded by Czech Radio in 1966. Since 2020 it has been co-organised by the Academy of Classical Music and carries the subtitle “the Antonín Dvořák International Radio Competition for Young Musicians”. It is a multi-disciplinary competition whose mission is to discover outstanding talents up to the age of 16 (or 18, depending on category). An international expert jury judges entrants in two categories: string & keyboard instruments, and wind instruments.
In the first round, the jury assesses competitors anonymously on the basis of submitted recordings. The second, final round is public and takes the form of a concert within the Dvořák Prague Festival.
Finalists receive scholarships of up to €5,000 from the Academy of Classical Music via the Karel Komárek Family Foundation and other partners. Laureates also have the opportunity to make a professional recording at Czech Radio. Finalists subsequently perform at the South Bohemian Festival Concertino Praga and are offered further concert opportunities from both co-organisers on prestigious stages at home and abroad.
Since 1988 Concertino Praga has been a member of the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY). It is held under the auspices of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), of which Czech Radio has been an active member since 1993.
Concertino Praga – the Antonín Dvořák International Radio Competition for Young Musicians – was founded in 1966 at the initiative of the Czechoslovak Radio editorial staff for broadcasting for children and young people. Among the leading figures in the initial development of the idea of a radio competition were the harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková, the composer Viktor Kalabis, and the radio editor Helena Karásková. Thanks to the existence of the Organisation Internationale de la Radiodiffusion et Télévision, a former east-European institution that facilitated cooperation between radio and television stations, the competition was able to attain an international character and thus to differentiate itself from a large number of established national competitions for performing musicians.
In view of the complications associated with organising international activities under the former political regime, the decision was made to hold a competition without the direct participation of the competitors by only using submitted audio recordings. It was not until the concert that the winners were invited to appear together on one stage for the first time in history in the Dvořák Hall at the House of Artists in Prague on 18 November 1966, where the violinists Václav Hudeček (2nd prize) and Dmitry Sitkovetsky (1st prize) were among the now familiar artists presenting themselves.
The following year, Václav Hudeček won first prize, and among the pianists to win prizes were Dina Joffe and Zoltán Kocsis. Despite the competition’s necessarily strong orientation towards eastern Europe, among the laureates at the turn of the 1960s and ’70s were the Israeli violinist Yuval Yaron, a string quartet from West Germany (with Ulrike Fleming, Assunta Kwoka, Brigitte Schmeid, and Doris Laidler), a Japanese piano duo with Shizuka Ishikawa and Mariko Horie, and the Canadian pianists Louis Lortie and Jon Kimura Parker. Still today, there is an apparent tradition of candidates from eastern Europe – each year, Russian competitors usually represent the most numerous foreign nationality at Concertino.
While the competition was initially open to just three categories (piano, violin, and chamber music), the number of instruments gradually grew. For this reason, among the laureates were not only the violinists Sergei Stadler, Julian Rachlin, Isabelle Faust, and Jan Mráček and the pianists Vladimír Felcman, Igor Ardašev, and Ivo Kahánek, but also the cellists Leonid Gorochov, Alexander Rudin, and Tomáš Jamník, the organist Jaroslav Tůma, the flautist Michael Martin Kofler, the oboists Jana Brožková and Vilém Veverka, the clarinettists Sabine Meyer and Ludmila Peterková, the French horn player Radek Baborák, and the trumpet player Giuliano Sommerhalder.
The multi-instrumental and international character of Concertino Praga was further strengthened by the collaboration established in 2019 between Czech Radio and the Academy of Classical Music. This joined the capabilities of a major media organisation—which founded the competition and has successfully run it for over fifty years—with those of the institution that has organised the internationally recognised Dvořák Prague Festival since 2008. Support for exceptionally talented young artists could thus take a new form, and from its 54th edition the competition has borne the subtitle “the Antonín Dvořák International Radio Competition for Young Musicians”.
Dvořák’s legacy is reflected in the fact that the composer himself gave financial support to promising young artists. Successful competitors therefore receive study scholarships or contributions towards the purchase of a musical instrument, thanks to the vital support of the Karel Komárek Family Foundation and other partners.
