2024 Adjudicators

Dr. Eugene Astapov is a Ukrainian-Canadian composer and conductor whose music combines the "richness of harmony" (New York Times) with a "haunting and soothing" narrativevatmosphere (Calgary Herald). The Grand Prize winner of the SOCAN Foundation's Young Composer Awards and a graduate of The Juilliard School, Astapov has shared his music withvaudiences of different nationalities and backgrounds around the globe from Paris to Vienna, Hong Kong to Seoul, New York to Los Angeles and virtually in every Canadian province.
 
As a prolific creator of music for large orchestral forces, Astapov's music has been workshopped and performed by major orchestras and ensembles internationally, often under his own direction, including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Lower Austria, Moravian Philharmonic, National Philharmonic Orchestra of Bulgaria, Victoria Symphony Orchestra, the Juilliard Orchestra, Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra and others. Mr. Astapov is an active conductor specializing in the presentation of the music of contemporary composers. He has served as the RBC Associate Composer/Conductor to Esprit Orchestra – Canada's only full sized orchestra dedicated to the performance of music by living composers. Eugene has enjoyed a 15- year long relationship with Esprit and has composed six large scale commissions to date for the ensemble.

In addition to his orchestral output, Astapov is an active composer of solo and chamber music, and has most recently collaborated with and created new chamber works for Dame Evelyn Glennie and Land's End Ensemble, Jeff Zeigler and the National Sawdust, Luri Lee and the Rolston String Quartet and many others. Additionally, he has worked with a number of prominent ensembles including the Penderecki and Cecilia String Quartets, the Gryphon Trio, Curtis 20/21, Ensemble Contemporaine du Montréal, New Juilliard Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble and many more. In 2022 Eugene's guitar music has been released on the American label Frameworks Records by the guitarist Trevor Babb. Eugene Astapov holds a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the University of Toronto and his artistic activity is supported in part by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the RBC Foundation, and the SOCAN Foundation. Dr. Astapov is a prominent pedagogue and currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Composition at Western University in London, Canada and is also a faculty member of the Royal Conservatory of Music at the Phil & Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists in Toronto, Canada, in addition to making frequent guest appearances at festivals and clinics, such as the SOCAN Competition and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra Composers' Institute.