By Heidi Vogel with Gergely Sugar
Over the years the IHS has run various programs that offer cash, performance and learning experience awards. The deadline for the contests and scholarships this year is April 1, 2018. Imagine having all your expenses paid to attend the 50th International Symposium in Muncie! How about the opportunity to perform at the Symposium? Cash awards? An orchestral coaching session for free? The key word is OPPORTUNITY! You can’t win if you don’t apply.
Many of our winners have gone on to illustrious careers involving the horn. One winner was asked about his experiences as a scholarship winner.
Gergely Sugar (GS) is a member of the ‘Wiener Symphoniker’, and a University Professor at the University for Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria teaching both Double- and Vienna-Horn. Gergely won the Hawkins Scholarship Award in 1996, which covered his expenses to attend the International Symposium held in Eugene, Oregon that year. Being a student back then in Budapest at the Franz Liszt Academy, the scholarship was really everything. Without the financial help there was no way he could have been able to visit the workshop in Eugene.
We asked Gergely: Was the Symposium for which you were awarded the Scholarship your first IHS Symposium? If so, what was the experience like for you? If not, how did it feel attending as an honored student, playing in a masterclass, or recital?
GS: Yes, that was my first symposium and a long time dream of mine. It was just mind blowing. The whole world opened up at a blink of an eye. I loved every moment of it…. It felt like being shot to the stars.
IHS: Has the Scholarship had a positive influence in your experience/education/career? If so, how?
GS: The Scholarship had many influences on me, first and foremost, just to be able to be there and learn and listen and absorb. Then certainly the fact that my CV became suddenly serious. A winner is a winner, they took me at face value, it was easy to receive an invitation to auditions and, this one I only realized years later, some people even recognized me from the Newsletter at my audition in Vienna.
IHS: Anything else you would like to add about your experience with the IHS Scholarship/Contest program?
GS: If someone is willing to step into the headlight, international competitions, IHS contests and scholarships are one quick way to do it… It worked really well for me.
To see more about the IHS Scholarship and Award programs please click here.
