Qualla: Eurovision Young Musicians 2016

Eurovision Young Musicians 2016: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Superbass, CC BY-SA 4.0. Picture an open-air stage built directly against the south façade of Cologne Cathedral, the Gothic spires rising 157 metres into a darkening September sky. Now picture an alto saxophone. The two do not obviously belong together. But on the evening of 3 September 2016, an eighteen-year-old from Poland named Łukasz Dyczko stepped onto that stage, lifted a saxophone to his lips, and played André Waignein's Rhapsody pour Saxophone alto. The WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, under conductor Clemens Schuldt, played beneath him. A five-person jury - including Austrian violinist Julian Rachlin, who had himself won this contest in 1988 - listened. When the points were tallied, Dyczko had beaten ten of Europe's most promising young classical instrumentalists. He took home ten thousand euros, a solo concert with the WDR Symphony, and the trophy for the eighteenth Eurovision Young Musicians.

Image: Superbass | CC BY-SA 4.0

Eurovision Young Musicians 2016: The Cathedral as Concert Hall

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Superbass, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cologne had narrowly outbid Budapest for hosting rights, and the decision turned out to be a kind of architectural showmanship. This was only the sixth time in the contest's history that the final had been staged outdoors, and German broadcaster WDR made the most of it. Performan...

Image: Superbass | CC BY-SA 4.0

Eurovision Young Musicians 2016: Eleven Countries, Eleven Instruments

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Superbass, CC BY-SA 4.0. The programme was a tour through the strangeness of what classical music can be. Marko Martinović of Croatia played Massenet's Meditation from Thaïs on a tamburica, a long-necked Balkan folk lute rarely heard in symphonic settings. Dominik Wagner of Austria coaxed Koussevitzky's ...

Image: Superbass | CC BY-SA 4.0

Eurovision Young Musicians 2016: The Saxophone and the Cathedral

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Superbass, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dyczko's win mattered partly because of what he played. The saxophone is barely 180 years old - invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s, a comparative newcomer in classical music that still struggles for repertoire and respect on concert programmes. To win Europe's most prestigious ...

Image: Superbass | CC BY-SA 4.0

Eurovision Young Musicians 2016: Cologne's Open-Air Tradition

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Superbass, CC BY-SA 4.0. This was Germany's third turn as host, after Berlin in 2002 and Cologne in 2014. Each time the contest landed in this Rhineland city, it gathered around the cathedral - the unmissable anchor of the old town, a building visible from almost every approach to the river. The crowd th...

Image: Superbass | CC BY-SA 4.0