Europe and Asia have major international conducting competitions – and, soon, North America will get one too.
The first Cliburn International Competition for Conductors will take place in 2028 in Houston.
The Fort Worth organization is best-known for its international piano competition, named for Van Cliburn, the Texas pianist who won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at the height of the Cold War.
The competition is a major career launchpad for young pianists around the world, and it draws top talent to Fort Worth every four years.
Marin Alsop will be the jury chair for the first conducting competition. She has led major orchestras in the U.S., South America, Austria and Great Britain. She also conducted the final rounds for the past two Van Cliburn International Competitions.
Alsop helped inspire the new competition, said Cliburn CEO and President Jacques Marquis.
“Marin [Alsop] is a big supporter of young artists and young conductors. She talked to me about, ‘Hey Jacques, we should do a conducting competition.’ And I said, this is a great idea. Let me work on this and that started everything,” Marquis explained.
The competition will be hosted in partnership with the Houston Symphony and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.
'Breakthrough opportunites'
Alsop described the new competition as a natural expansion of her partnership with the Cliburn.
“The musicians of the Houston Symphony are very excited about the initiative, and I think it will really remove some of the barriers that face the younger generations of conductors,” she said.
Alsop had the opportunity to participate in a conducting competition in the late 1980s. She described the experience as “life altering” even though she didn’t win.
“I was seen by a jury of conductors, and I was engaged by several of them to come and guest conduct their orchestras, so these are some of my very first breakthrough opportunities,” Alsop said.
Not the first expansion
This is not the first time that the Fort Worth-based organization is hosting a competition outside of Tarrant County.
After its 2015 debut, the Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and Festival moved from Fort Worth to Dallas.
In that move, the Cliburn established a partnership with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Southern Methodist University.
Marquis said there are several factors that made Houston an appealing place for a new competition, including the fact that it’s the place where Van Cliburn had his orchestra debut.
“They didn't have any competition going on. It's a great orchestra, and it is a great market, and they've been working with Marin [Alsop] for a long time. It was all of the winning conditions,” he said.
“Not only Houston, but also the Shepherd School of Music. They have a conducting program led by Miguel Harth-Bedoya [music director laureate at the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra]. It was, once again, another good reason to do that in Houston as well.”
The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was first held in 1962 and continues to be held in Fort Worth. Cliburn was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, raised in Kilgore and later became a fixture in Fort Worth where he lived until his death in 2013.
Up to 25 applicants ages 21-35 will be selected for live auditions, and twelve will be invited to participate in the June 2028 competition.
Applications for the new competition will open in October 2026, and contestants will have until November 2027 to submit their materials.
