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Su-Han Yang, a 28-year-old youth conductor and alumni of NTNU, received the first prize at the Grzegorz Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors on November 25th. He is the first Taiwanese that receive an award in that competition. In addition to 250,000 euro, invitations from lots of International orchestras awaits the award-winning conductor. Students and professor of the Department of Music, NTNU are happy for him. Yang is grateful that Prof. Apo Chin-Hsing Hsu led him to become a conductor. 

Su-Han Yang graduated from the Department of Music at Tonghai University and finished his master degree in NTNU. Now he studies at Hanns Eisler, under the instruction of Christian Ehwald and Hans-Dieter Baum.  Now he received a great honor, he was really grateful to his parents for the continuous support. He wants to become a conductor that pass on the power of music to orchestra members and audiences. 

The First Grzegorz Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors was held in memory of the 100th death anniversary of Grzegorz Fitelberg, the great Polish conductor. His last student Karol Stryja initiated the competition in 1979.  After the great success of the first competition, it was listed as three major International music competition in Poland by the World Federation of International Music Competitions, WFIMC, along with International Chopin Piano Competition and Wieniawski International Violin Competition.

The First Grzegorz Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors was held in every 4 years from 1979 to 2007. After 2007, it was held in every 5 years. This year is the 10th competition. Hundreds of youth conductors came from around the world and only 50 of them pass the audition of the competition. 

According to Yang, the competition this year is different from that of last year. The organizer assigned 4 pieces for each round in three rounds. Before going on stage, the contestant will draw lots to know the piece for competition 30 to 50 minutes earlier. That is to say, they have to prepare 12 pieces this time, which will take up to 5 concerts if played at a time. This is a very challenging task. 

Yang is a very hard working musician. He was invited to the Pacific Music Festival (PMF) in July and was chosen as the only 3 members out of almost 100 applicants. Two years ago, he was selected to join the first Italian Opera Academy held by Riccardo Muti and stood up from 300 conductors and became 4 students of Muti. Yang assisted Muti with the production of Sir John Falstaff and learned from the master.