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Sigmund Thorp

President of the jury

Sigmund Thorp is one of Norway’s leading conductors. In addition to having conducted all the Norwegian orchestras, he has held numerous concerts with orchestras in many European cities, including London, Paris, Berlin and St. Petersburg.

He was the 1st. Prize winner of Biel International Conducting Competition 1989, and he also won 2nd prize in the Austrian-Hungarian International Conducting Competition in Pecz, 1994.

He studied orchestral conducting with Normal Del Mar and Christopher Adey at Royal College of Music in London. During his studies, he won several prizes, including “The Tagore Gold Medal”, as the best male student 1986.

Sigmund Thorp is professor of conducting at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, educating tomorrow’s conductors, in addition to teaching contemporary music. He is artistic leader of the Norwegian Academy Sinfonietta, and has conducted more than 350 works by contemporary composers, of which a large number of national and international first performances.

Based on the theories and practices of Dr. Walter Hügler (Trossingen) Thorp has developed “The Anatomy of Conducting – a Method of Improving Conducting Technique”. The method has proven to be highly effective for the musical projection and for the non-verbal communication between the musicians and the conductor.

Sigmund Thorp has been Guest Professor at Trinity College of Music (London), the HAMU (Prague), Conservatorio Guiseppe Tartini (Trieste) and Kunstuniversität Graz.