Jury 2025

The 2025 Competition Jury

Discover the jury which will award the prizes of the 2025 International Choir Competition in Provence.

Igor Mykhailevsky

Last student of the famous professor Pyotr Gorokhov of the Prokofiev State Conservatory of Donetsk in Ukraine, graduate of the Slavyansk Music School, the Dzerzinsk Musical College and the Donetsk Conservatory, Igor Mykhailevsky taught musical education, techniques of singing, voice and direction of the choir.

He created the Crimean Choir in 1994 which became, under his direction, and thanks to his method of choral training, one of the most representative groups in the Slavic musical and vocal repertoire. This excellent level of the Crimean Choir, unanimously recognized, will earn it the most important distinctions of its country: Emeritus Master of Arts of Ukraine, Honorary Citizen of Arts of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea…

Arriving in France in 2022, the tireless dynamism and great competence of Igor Mykhailevsky lead him to develop his new projects: creation of a choral singing festival and organization of musical training courses throughout France where passionate choristers join him .

Based in Montpellier, he created the Nouveau Chœur, whose concerts in France are already unanimously appreciated by music lovers. Thanks to his passion and skills, Igor Mykhailevsky brings new vocal skills to the choristers he has recruited. The numerous echoes confirm the exceptional level developed around the repertoire of sacred and traditional songs of Ukrainian composers.

The New Choir wants to promote through music and song a universal message of peace and friendship. The artists who compose it sing and travel to share this enthusiasm.

Igor Mykhailevsky works a lot to bring the choir singers to the highest level. He developed his own method for the singers in the choir to reach this level, with each chorister having to follow a course in vocal and choral technique with the conductor. In addition, Igor Mykhailevsky gives internships and master classes in different regions of France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Swingly Wicliff Sondak

Artistic director and choir director of several choirs in Indonesia such as Manado State University Choir, Bitung, City Chorale, Master of Breakthrough, North Sulawesi LPPD Choir and North Sulawesi GMIM Male Choir.

Born in 1984, successfully graduated and became a Bachelor in the Chemistry Study Program at Manado State University. Became a Choir Conductor at the age of 17.

Since then, he has begun to pursue activities as a choir trainer by participating in, even winning at various competitions both National and International, among others are as Conductor of the Manado State University Choir, Bitung City Chorale, Master of Breakthrough, North Sulawesi LPPD Choir, and North Sulawesi GMIM Male Choir.

Since 2005, studying music with Prof. Perry Rumengan (Indonesia), Tommyanto Kandisaputra (Indonesia), Prof. Andre de Quadros (USA), and Jonathan Velasco (Philippines), attended music symposiums, studied piano and composition, teaching music in churches, and served as judges in various choirs competitions.

He also succeeded in becoming the best conductor in several competitions, such as Asian Choir Games, Jakarta, Indonesia 2007, Best Conductor at the 2012 and 2017 Bali International Choir Festival, and Best Conductor at the 5th Leonardo da Vinci International Choral Festival, Florence, Italy 2023. Due to his various achievements, he is currently entrusted as Vice Chairman of Chorale Development Institute of the Tomohon City.

Some of the achievements that have been achieved include:

– Guest Choir at International Concerts in Seoul, Daegu, Busan, and Incheon, South Korea 2006

– Champion of the National University Choir Competition, Manado, Indonesia 2006

– Champion of the Asian Choir Games, Jakarta, Indonesia 2007 in 3 categories

– Champion of the Asian Choir Games, Gyeongnam, South Korea 2009

– Champion of the Canta Al Mar, Barcelona, ​​Spain 2014

– Champion of the Bali International Choir Festival 2016 and 2017

– Champion of the National Choir Competition, Yogyakarta, Indonesia 2022

– Champion of the 5th Leonardo da Vinci International Choral Festival, Florence, Italy 2023 in 2 categories

– Champion of the International Choir Competition in Provence, France 2023 in 3 categories

Currently, he is not only involved in coaching dozens of church choirs in Indonesia, as well as holding some high level choir competitions, but he is also active in efforts of the environment conservation as a civil servant.

Roberta Paraninfo

Roberta Paraninfo, pianist by training, conductor and teacher by profession, has founded and directed several choral ensembles since 1994, professional and amateurs. She is member of the FENIARCO. 

Roberta currently directs the choirs of the Accademia Vocal Academy of Genoa, a choral and musical training coursethat she has personally founded in 2005. Among these choirs : the group semi-professional vocal group Genova Vocal Ensemble, the mixed choir Sibi Consoni, with which she has won numerous awards in national and international competitions, the youth choir Giovani Cantori and the children’s choir Piccoli Cantori.

In addition to these, she founded and directed the choir mixed choir JanuaVox, the women’s choir Good News! the Steffani Conservatory Choir and the Choir da Camera Steffani, of the Steffani Conservatory in Castelfranco Veneto.

Together with Maestro Gary Graden, Roberta has directed the Coro Giovanile Italiano, FENIARCO project, for the biennium 2015-2017.

She has received the ‘Best Conductor’ award five times, in as many national and international competitions.

Believing that immersion in music from an early age is fundamental, she has for many years, she has personally curated music education and choral development projects for classes primary schools in Genoa and, in parallel, training courses for teachers and choir directors in various regions of Italy, on behalf of FENIARCO, the Regional Associations and various training organisations.

She has several recordings to her credit, in particular the CD Pro festo Innocentium, music by Michael Haydn, recorded with the Genova Vocal Ensemble, produced and distributed by the label Brilliant Classics, for which she also recorded the Shakespeare Sonnets by M. Castelnuovo Tedesco.

She taught Choral Exercises at the Conservatory of Castelfranco Veneto (TV) from 2014 to 2017. She also teaches Piano Accompaniment at the Conservatorio “N. Paganini” in Genoa.

Susanna Saw

Susanna Saw is an active music educator promoting music and choral education in Malaysia. She obtained her Master in Music Education (Choral Focus) from Westminster Choir College, U.S.A. She is currently a lecturer and choir director at the Faculty of Music at the University of Malaya (UM) and the Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA), where she conducts the MIA Ladies Chorus, the Men’s Chorus and the Mixed Voices Choir. Both the Men and Ladies Choruses have won many gold medals and been category winners in various international competitions.

In 2007, Susanna established the Young Choral Academy in Kuala Lumpur, a venue for choral lovers to learn more about vocal and choral education. She was instrumental in bringing the Kodály Teachers’ Training Course to Malaysia to improve the standards of local classroom music teaching.

She organized the 24th International Kodály Symposium in August 2019, in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia; through this, she hopes to bring more awareness of the Kodály teaching philosophy to the Southeast Asian region. During the pandemic, Susanna organized monthly Kodály Online Hangouts, bringing together music educators from around the world to learn, sing and stay connected.

Susanna is also the Founder and Director of the Malaysian Choral Eisteddfod (MCE), which organised various symposium, national and international choir festival since 2002.

Since 2007, Susanna has been regularly invited by INTERKULTUR, Germany, to be a member of the jury for the Asia Pacific and World Choir Games. She has been appointed a member of the Working Committee for the Asia-Pacific Choral Council, under the auspices of the International Federation of Choral Music (IFCM).

Susanna is also an active speaker at various music education events, promoting effective music teaching in the 21st century. She currently holds the position of Vice-President in the International Kodály Society, the World Youth and Children Choral Artists’ Association, and the Malaysian Association for Music Education.

She is also a Board Member of the International Choral Conductors Federation (ICCF) and serves on the Advisory Board of CHORALSPACE, Germany.

Luc Coadou

Luc Coadou is a French solo singer specialized in the Baroque repertoire for bass voice of the 17th and 18th centuries. He also works as a choirmaster and conductor and directs the “Ensemble Instrumental de Toulon et du Var” as well as the professional vocal ensemble “Les Voix Animées”. Luc will be the President of the Jury for the third time. 

Born in the mists of the North, like the Franco-Flemish masters of the Renaissance, Luc Coadou happily passes from the status of singer to that of choir director and ensemble with a constant concern for pedagogy and musicological research. A certain predilection for old repertoires can be found in his university work, he is the author of research on lyrical theater at the time of the French Revolution.

Baritone Luc Coadou began his career as a child singer with the Dunkirk Choir school Les Rossignolets. He studied singing in Lille and perfected with Rachel Yakar and René Jacobs at the Studio Versailles-Opéra.

He sings with many ensembles such as La Chapelle Royale, Les Arts Florissants, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Les Talens Lyriques, Le Parliament of Music, La Grande Écurie and Chambre du Roy and Le Concert Spirituel. From medieval music to contemporary creation, its repertoire combines musical research and eclecticism. He has performed at prestigious festivals and many opera houses as a singer.

As conductor, Luc Coadou conducts among others Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C, Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Georg Friedrich Handel’s Le Messie, and numerous lyrical works from the 19th century, including little-known operas by Boieldieu, Weber, Chabrier, Viardot, Bizet, Gounod, Pergolèse, Grétry, Delibes, Terrasse and Offenbach.

Singing teacher, he is invited by the National Conservatory of Music and Dance of Lyon during masterclasses devoted to Renaissance polyphony and has been teaching since 2000 at the National Conservatory with regional influence in Toulon Provence Méditerranée, after having taught for ten years at the Conservatory. from Caen.

With Les Voix Animées, he explores the vast repertoire of a cappella vocal music and especially that of Renaissance polyphony. By creating the ensemble in 2009, Luc Coadou fashioned a veritable sound “toolkit” allowing him to give life and voice to little-known or even forgotten music of the 15th and 16th centuries. Throughout the ensemble’s programs, the “reborn” Josquin, Lassus, Palestrina, Victoria, Byrd re-enchant our 21st century ears and mingle with the works of “contemporaries” Karol Beffa, Dimitri Tchesnokov, Tomas Bordalejo, Léo Collin, Raphaël Languillat, Christophe Demarthe and Romain Bastard specially composed for Les Voix Animées.

In 2024, Luc will chair the Jury for the 3rd time at the International Choral Competition in Provence.

Camilo Santostefano

Camilo is an Argentinian International Choir & Orchestra Conductor.  Graduated from the National University of Arts of Buenos Aires, he has won a multitude of awards during International Competitions. He is also a Professor, a Competition Organizer, a Composer, a Jury and IFCM Ambassador.

Camilo Santostefano graduated with a Bachelor in Choir Conducting from the National University of the Arts of Buenos Aires. He is also graduated as a Professor in Music and Guitar Teacher at the Conservatory of Morón in Argentina.  At the UNCUYO University in Argentina he has continued his post-graduate studies in “Interpretation of 20th Century Latin American Music”.

He was awarded the Konex Award 2019 Mention of Merit in Choral Conducting, as one of the 100 most influential Argentinian musicians over the period 2009-2018.

Actually he conducts the Coro Polifónico de Córdoba, professional choir at the Teatro del Libertador San Martin in Córdoba, Argentina.

Camilo is the founder and Choir Conductor of the MusicaQuantica Voces de Cámara, awarded with a multitude of prizes around the world: Grand Prix Ave Verum (Austria 2012), Grand Prix Florilège Vocal de Tours (France 2012), Finalist of the ‘European Grand Prix (Italy 2013), IFCM Ambassador (South Korea 2014), as well as numerous awards in its country of origin in Argentina. He also received the First Prize in Orchestral Conducting in 2014 at the Maimonides University Competition, as well as the FNA Prize for Best Conductor at Ansilta 2010, San Juan, Argentina.

He founded and conducted between 2009 and 2018 the Opera company Lírica Lado B (which won the ACMA stimulus Award in 2015), and with which he premiered many operas in South America.

He founded and directed the Carlos López Buchardo Choir of the National University of the Arts (FAUNA Award 2017) between 2013 and 2022.

In addition, Camilo was Director of the Choir National School of Buenos Aires as well as of its Chamber Choir Amadeo Jacques.

He lived in Austria between 2019 and 2022, where he was the conductor of the Gumpoldskirchner Spatzen, Cantilena Kammer Frauenchor, Ensemble KammerAT, Melange Vocal Wien and guest conductor of the Wiener Tonkunstvereinigung Chor und Orchester.

Camilo is also guest conductor of the National Youth Choir of Wales (UK), Red Coral de Medellín (Colombia), Fullerton College of Los Angeles (USA) and the Coro Polifónico Nacional (Argentina).

He teached Conducting at the Conservatorio Astor Piazzolla de Buenos Aires.  He also offered Masterclasses and Conferences in Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Paraguay, USA and Wales.

As a composer he won the First Prize at the 80th Anniversary of the National Conservatory of Buenos Aires and the 2nd Prize at the Chamber Opera Composition Competition “OperaVista” in Houston, USA.

As a jury member we took part in the 2022 International Choir Competition. Choral Events, Provence, France; 2022 International Choir Competition Victoria Adriatic Choral Competition. We Are Singing, Opatija, Croacia; 2016 Artistic Board of the VIII America Cantat. Festival,  América Cantat, Nassau, Bahamas; 2015 VIII Competition of Interpretation of Sudamerican Choral Music, AAMCANT, La Plata, Argentina; and the 2013 Competition of Choral Arrangements, AAMCANT, La Plata, Argentina.