Laura Ballestrino, winner of Juventudes Musicales de España

The ninety-ninth edition of the Juventudes Musicales de España competition already has winners in the two categories: Piano and Instruments without their own category. On 23, 24 and 25 June, both categories of the Juventudes Musicales de España Competition, the historic competition organised by Juventudes Musicales de España (JM España), were held at the Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio (UAX), Madrid. This 99th edition corresponded to Piano and Instruments without their own modality.

The First Prize in the Piano category was awarded to Laura Ballestrino Mateos (Madrid, 2000).

Of the thirty-one pianists of the piano category, twenty were selected to take part in the presential phase, and presented a wide variety of repertoires demonstrating a high level of performance, with six of them reaching the final, as stipulated in the competition rules.

The jury of the competition in both categories was chaired by the composer Jesús Rueda and included the pianists Josep Colom, Mariana Gurkova, Miguel Ituarte and Jesús Herrera, as members in the piano category, and Antonio Martín, secretary of Juventudes Musicales de España, as non-voting secretary. The jury followed the international standards of the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY), of which the JM España competition is the only Spanish member. These standards indicate that the jury does not deliberate but gives anonymous scores and the result is obtained from the averages of all the scores.