Serena Sáenz, alumni of the Liceu Conservatory Foundation and scholarship holder of the Ferrer-Salat Music Foundation, has won the first prize in the 16th edition of the Montserrat Caballé International Singing Competition, held for the first time at Gran Teatre del Liceu.
The young soprano from Barcelona has also been awarded with the Audience Special Award and the Gran Teatre del Liceu and Peralada Festival Special Award. The members of the jury has been Víctor García de Gomar, Gran Teatre del Liceu Artistic Director, the great tenor Jaume Aragall, Carlos Caballé, Montserrat Caballé’s brother, the music critic Roger Alier, the singing teacher of the Liceu Conservatory Carmen Bustamante, and Fernando Sans Rivière, Opera Magazine’s Director.
Serena Sáenz was a scholarship holder of the Ferrer-Salat Music Foundation during the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years. During the 2016-17 academic year she studied at Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” (Berlin), within the framework of the Liceu Conservatory Erasmus+ programme that helps to organise exchanges within other countries of the European Union. Her residence in Berlin stimulated its connection with the German musical scene. This led him to debut at the Staatsoper of Berlin in the opera “Ariadne Auf Naxos” by Richard Strauss, as Zerbinetta. Staatsoper of Berlin is one of the most important opera theaters in Germany. A few months ago, he debuted at Gran Teatre del Liceu as the main character Lucia di Lammermoor, with great success.
Serena finished her studies at the Liceu Conservatory in 2018, obtaining the Conservatory Prize in Classical Music Performance.
The first edition of the Montserrat Caballé International Singing Competition was in 1999 and was held in Sant Julià de Lòria (Andorra). Montserrat Caballé is one of the most outstanding students who have passed through the Liceu Conservatory. She was taught in this conservatoire by the great professor Eugenia Kemeny Kirschner. Her otherworldly talent and the lack of resources of her family, made that Pere Vallribera (at that time the Liceu Conservatory Director) addressed the Bertrand family to ask for help, and this family of industrial entrepreneurs, financed her studies.
Liceu Conservatory students have had since then the pride and the responsibility to carry out their music studies in the same place where Montserrat Caballé learned her unparalleled singing skills and where she performed in public for the first time.
In 2004, 50 years after Montserrat Caballé’s Final Examination at the Conservatory’s Teatrino, the Liceu Conservatory Foundation awarded her with the Conservatory Gold Medal.
From the Liceu Conservatory Foundation we congratulate the participants in the contest, and especially Serena Sáenz, the winner. We want to express our recognition to the institutions that, as the Montserrat Caballé Foundation, offer young musicians promotion opportunities to develop their talent.