56 singers selected for preliminary round

6 February 2024

On the basis of the application videos, our pre-screening jury selected 56 applicants for the preliminary round in June. The selected applicants represent 25 different nationalities.

Soile Isokoski, chair of the Mirjam Helin competition jury, is delighted with the high skill level of applicants. According to Isokoski, it is difficult to rank people in the context of art. “The first selection criterion is, of course, the applicant’s voice, but that is only the basis. The goal is for the singer to sing the music as it is written, but also to go beyond the notes – that is, to really live the song and to have knowledge of different genres. You do not sing Verdi and Mozart in the same manner”, Isokoski points out.

“It was very difficult to whittle down the number of singers to be selected for the competition, because of the huge number of promising singers of high quality”, says Isokoski.

The nationality most represented in the preliminary round is the South Koreans, with thirteen competitors. As many as four Finnish singers made it to the competition. They are Iris Candelaria, Emma Mustaniemi, Johannes Pessi and Heta Sammalisto.

Singers to be featured in the competition come from countries such as Armenia, Germany, Costa Rica, China, the United States, Croatia and Australia. A total of 25 nationalities are represented.

Laureates of the competition will be performing in Finland in the summer of 2024 as well as in 2025 as follows:

• 11 July 2024 Organ Night and Aria festival (Espoo, Finland)
• 26 July 2024 Joroinen Music Festival (Joroinen, Finland)
• 5 February 2025 Kuopio Symphony Orchestra (Kuopio, Finland)
• 24 April 2025 Oulu Sinfonia (Oulu, Finland)

Singers selected for the preliminary round in 2024:

Judith Ankoué, soprano, FR
Marko Antolković, countertenor, HR
Josipa Bilić, soprano, HR
Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur, mezzo, FR
Oliver Boyd, baritone, AU
Jingwen Cai, mezzo, CN
Iris Candelaria, soprano, FI
Eunil Cho, soprano, KR
Aksel Daveyan, baritone, AM
Kara Dugan, mezzo, US
Valerie Eickhoff, mezzo, DE
Filip Filipović, tenor, HR
Ricardo Garcia, tenor, US
Renáta Gebe-Fügi, soprano, HU
ByeongMin Gil, bass-baritone, KR
Valeria Girardello, mezzo, IT
Kevin Godínez, baritone, CR
Clarice Granado, soprano, SE
Hyunju Ha, soprano, KR
Hedvig Haugerud, soprano, NO
Lovisa Huledal, mezzo, SE
Junho Hwang, tenor, KR
Marie Sofie Jacob, soprano, DE
Lubov Karetnikova, soprano, US
Justyna Khil, soprano, PL
Grace Gayoung Kim, mezzo, KR
Jongwoo Kim, tenor, KR
Gabriele Kupsyte, mezzo, LT
Maciej Kwaśnikowski, tenor, PL
Aaron Eunhyuk Lee, bass, KR
Hyejin Lee, soprano, KR
Jonghwan Lee, baritone, KR
Sanghun Lee, baritone, KR
Logan Lopez Gonzalez, countertenor, BE
Kathrin Lorenzen, soprano, DE
Magdalena Lucjan, soprano, PL
Marta Kristin Friðriksdóttir, soprano, IS
Beatriz Miranda, mezzo, PT
Alexandria Moon, mezzo, GB
Emma Mustaniemi, soprano, FI
Amber Norelai, soprano, VE
Euiyoung Oh, tenor, KR
Nuri Park, soprano, KR
Samueol Park, baritone, KR
Johannes Pessi, baritone, FI
Karoline Podolak, soprano, CA
Maggie Reneé, mezzo, US
Gabriel Rollinson, baritone, DE
Heta Sammalisto, soprano, FI
Ekaterina Spivakovskaia, soprano, RU
Volodymyr Tyshkov, bass, UA
Emilia Utter, soprano, SE
Alexander Voronov, bass, RU
Maria Warenberg, mezzo, NL
Mengting Wu, soprano, CN
Jingjing Xu, mezzo, CN

Update 31.5.2024: 56 out of 485 singers were selected to participate. 14 of them had to withdraw.