23 Jul 2017

1st prize at The Cooper International Violin Competition

Johan has been awarded 1 st prize at The Thomas and Evon Cooper International Violin Competition, at Oberlin College, Ohio, United States.

Johan Dalene wins the 2017 Cooper Competition for Violin. In the Finals Johan played the Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D Major with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Jahja Ling at Severance Hall, Cleveland. He brought the Severance Hall audience to its feet in boisterous applause immediately after the final note on Friday.Dalene was awarded the top prize of $20,000.  

“I saw the best Tchaikovsky Concerto that I’ve ever heard,” said Gregory Fulkerson, longtime director of the Cooper Violin Competition and chair of the jury, shortly after Dalene was named the winner. “I’ve been waiting 60 years to hear someone take the Tchaikovsky Concerto and understand the score so profoundly that he can take it to the world and interpret it in precisely the way the composer intended. It was simply spectacular.”