VWMS COMPETITIONS
UPCOMING COMPETITIONS:
SCHOLARSHIP COMPETITION for orchestral instruments - Fall, 2024
Cancelled (will resume in 2024/25 season)
bursary competition - Held Annually
Cancelled (will resume in 2024/25 season)
SCHOLARSHIP COMPETITION FOR VOICE - EARLY 2025
Art Song Competition - TBA
All our competitions are open to Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents who call BC their home
Rules and Application Forms will be available on this page - please check back regularly
EVERY applicant receives a valuable gift from our Community Partner: Diamond’s Edge Photography
2023 Scholarship Competition Adjudicators
Bogdan Dulu, pianist & Evgenia Rabinovich, pianist
Bogdan Dulu is the co-chair of the Piano Department at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) School of Music, and can be heard playing the piano, celeste, harpsichord, and synthesizer in the VSO.
His reputation as a fast and reliable learner has helped consolidate his standing as one of Vancouver’s go-to pianists for last-minute musical emergencies of considerable might. Such came his Vancouver Symphony Orchestra debut under late music director, Bramwell Tovey, who asked him to step in on a 20-day notice to learn and subsequently premiere the Shalimar Variations, Tovey’s new 25-minute concerto for piano and orchestra. The premiere performance was recorded by the CBC.
Dulu also competed in some of the more prestigious international piano competitions, among them Sendai, Helsinki, New Orleans, Calgary (Honens), Bucharest (Enescu), Cincinnati, and Seattle. He toured extensively across Canada as a signed artist with Jeunesses Musicales and Debut Atlantic. His High-Voltage Piano/Piano Haute-Voltige program highlighting piano music of Marc-André Hamelin reached audiences across Eastern Canada with a marathon tour of 19 solo recitals in 7 weeks. He also toured the Northwest Territories, reaching communities above the Arctic Circle. He has performed in Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa, being equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, collaborative and orchestral pianist, coach, or public speaker. Radio appearances include NHK Tokyo, YLE Finland, Romanian Radio, KING FM Seattle, WFMT Chicago, and the CBC.
Dulu holds degrees from Bucharest University, Mannes School of Music (NYC), and University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. His principal teachers include Ana Pitis, Irina Morozova, and Jane Coop. He has also worked with Yefim Bronfman, Richard Goode, and Stephen Hough, and maintains a close relationship with Marc-André Hamelin. Dulu was the first graduate student to write a doctoral dissertation on Hamelin’s piano Études, researched under the personal guidance of the Canadian composer-pianist. He is currently studying harpsichord under Alexander Weimann through the Early Music Vancouver’s BC Scholarship Programme.
In addition to his VSO duties, Bogdan is on college faculty at the Vancouver Academy of Music |S.K.Lee College, where he teaches piano, chamber music, and the Career Development course. He has also taught piano at the UBC School of Music. He is a sought-after adjudicator for festivals and concerto competitions, and has given masterclasses and presentations for Dalhousie University, University of New Brunswick, University of Montreal, and Memorial University of Newfoundland, among others. He serves on the advisory committee for the Pacific International Youth Music Society, and is member of the VSO’s Digital Learning Advisory Council and the Canadian Federation of Musicians.
Bogdan is a proud naturalized Canadian citizen, and lives on the traditional and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations, colonially known as Vancouver, British Columbia. He is an amateur competitive cyclist, and has a rather costly affinity for carbon road bikes. He does not like viola jokes.
www.bogdandulu.com
Evgenia Rabinovich is a Vancouver-based pianist, teacher, and performer. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia, where she is currently conducting research.
Evgenia’s performance career includes concert appearances across the United States, Canada, Europe, and China. She has performed at venues such as Steinway Hall (NY), Sala Dei Notari
(Italy), and the Chan Centre for Performing Arts (Vancouver), among many others. She has played internationally with multiple orchestras since her concerto debut with the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra under conductor Ken Hsieh at age 15, when she played Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor. She has also appeared with the UBC Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Jonathan Girard (2018), the Brunensis Virtuosi Orchestra under Maestro Danwen Wei (2017), and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Alicante under Maestro Uri Segal (2015). She is a winner of numerous competitions, including the Canadian Music Competition, Silverman Concerto Competition, and VWMS Bursary competitions, among many others.
Evgenia's teaching career includes teaching piano at the University of British Columbia, as well as tutoring piano and theory at the Mannes School of Music (The New School) in New York. She has appeared as an adjudicator and visiting lecturer multiple times. She enjoys performing during the summers and engaging with audiences via social media. She has been a visiting performer at Music Fest Perugia since 2011, working as an administrative team member for the festival in 2016 and a Social Media Manager in 2017. From 2021 to 2022, she has served as a Board Member and Social Media Chair of the Vancouver Westcoast Musical Society, where she helped develop and refine the organization's social media marketing, managing, and advertising.
Evgenia began her university studies at UBC at the age of 15 after graduating early via the University Transitions Program for Gifted Adolescents. She received Early Entrance to the University of British Columbia and was awarded The Major Entrance Scholarship, focusing her early studies on psychology and English rhetoric. Evgenia received her bachelor’s degree as an Honours graduate of the Mannes School of Music in NY (BMUS, 2015) while studying with piano department head Professor Pavlina Dokovska. During that time, she also took courses in piano pedagogy with Professor Vladimir Valjarevic, who was also her mentor and secondary teacher. At the same time, she studied theory and damaged analysis with Dr. Robert Cuckson and composition with Professor David Loeb. In 2017, she received her master’s degree working with Dr. Sara Davis Buechner and Professor Miranda Wong at the University of British Columbia
(MMUS, 2017). She is currently in a doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia, where she is conducting research for her degree.
Evgenia’s musical studies include long-term work with Dr. Sasha Starcevich and Mannes department head Professor Pavlina Dokovska. Her work in chamber music includes many years of studies with Professor Rena Sharon and pianist and critic Harris Goldsmith.
Evgenia teaches piano and theory from her private studio in the Greater Vancouver area. When she moved to Vancouver in 2017, she co-founded the Vancouver Piano School with her husband Nicholas Rada and their colleague. In 2020, she co-founded the RR Academy, which specializes in developing advanced musicianship in young performers, with her husband and chamber partner Nicholas Rada. At RR Academy, Evgenia teaches piano and theory. Since 2020, she has developed and offered group courses in advanced harmony and history, as well as courses aimed at preparing students for university entrance. Since 2021, she has been overseeing and mentoring RR Academy's Student Teachers while guiding them in developing effective teaching approaches.
She has been teaching classical piano and theory for over 10 years and has spent the last 8 years working as a teaching assistant both in Canada and the United States. Her students receive First Class Honours with Distinction in both their piano and theory RCM studies and are regular competition winners.
To hear Evgenia’s playing and read more about her life’s work, visit https://evgeniarabinovich.ca
