Several of the 16 competitors are first-prize laureates of previous international violin competitions in recent years
The International Violin Competition of Indianapolis has announced the 16 musicians who will be competing in the semi-finals. Six of the semi-finalists are American, with three hailing from South Korea, three from China, two from Japan and one each from Canada and Turkey.
The 16 semi-finalists are:
Zachary Brandon (27, US)
Karisa Chiu (27, US)
Elli Choi (25, US)
Bade Dastan (19, Turkey)
Corina Deng (18, Canada)
Wenlan Jackson (24, US)
Yeyeong (Jenny) Jin (23, South Korea)
Donghyun Kim (26, South Korea)
Chaeyeon Lee (22, South Korea)
Yesong Sophie Lee (22, US)
Chaowen Luo (25, China)
Lina Nakano (21, Japan)
Audrey Park (23, US)
Sara Watanabe (21, Japan)
Aozhe Zhang (18, China)
Xunyue Zhang (22, China)
Many of the semi-finalists have had success at past violin competitions around the world. Karisa Chiu received the first prize at the 2021 IsangYun Violin Competition in South Korea, while Elli Choi took the first prize at the 2024 Dubai Classic Violin Competition and the 2016 World Monaco Music Masters Competition. Corina Deng won the 2025 Markneukirchen International Instrumental Competition for Violin.
Yeyeong (Jenny) Jin won the 2023 Michael Hill International Violin Competition. Donghyun Kim won the 2018 Seoul International Music Competition. Yesong Sophie Lee won the junior division of the 2016 Menuhin Competition. Lina Nakano won the 2022 Sendai International Violin Competition. Audrey Park took the Grand Prize at Vienna’s Violins & Soul Competition in 2025. Aozhe Zhang won both the Premio Paganini and Tibor Varga competitions last year. And Xunyue Zhang took the top prize at this year’s International Mozart Competition in February.
A total of 38 participants participated in the preliminary rounds, which took place over four days. Each performed a 40-minute recital of masterworks by Ysaÿe, Hindemith, Prokofiev, Paganini, Milstein or Ernst, plus a full Mozart sonata and a work from the encore repertoire.
The semi-finals will take place from 25 to 28 September, with each competitor performing a full recital of 19th- and 20th-century works from the standard repertoire, as well as the 2026 commissioned work, Jessie Montgomery’s Rhapsody no.3 for solo violin.
The jury for the 2026 competition comprises Jaime Laredo (chair), David Chan, Jinjoo Cho, Pamela Frank, Yuzuko Horigome, Bella Hristova, Dong-Suk Kang, Cho-Liang Lin and Svetlin Roussev.
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