Danish-Australian Alexander Colding Smith is one of the 20 young conductors selected from across Europe to take part in the 15th Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition. The winner will receive a cash prize of £15,000 (approximately $AU 28,000) for career development and will also become an Assistant Conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra for at least a year.

Open to conductors aged under 30, who are citizens of the 28 countries having full membership of the European Union, plus those from Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein and Switzerland, the competition will take place in London from November 20 to 22.

After two days of preliminary rounds, in which the 20 participants will conduct the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra in front of the judging panel, three finalists will conduct the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in front of a live audience. The concert will also be live-streamed on Medici TV.

The judges for this year’s competition are conductors Sian Edwards, Tadaaki Otaka and Yan Pascal Tortelier, violinist Vadim Repin, LSO Principal Cor Anglais Christine Pendrill, and violinist Lennox Mackenzie, the LSO’s Sub-Leader. Sir Antonio Pappano, Music Director of the Royal Opera House, and François-Xavier Roth, the winner of the Competition in 2000 and now the LSO’s...