January 2023 Winner: Jean-Vif Chandra
This issue’s featured young artist award winner is Jean-Vif Chandra, a sixteen-year-old trumpet player from Surabaya, Indonesia. Vif has been playing trumpet for seven years and regularly performs in the Orkes Kota Pahlawan and Diatas rata rata orchestras, conducted by Erwin Gutawa. He also won a position performing in the Indonesian Youth Concert Orchestra in 2017, the JATIM Orchestra in 2018, the Twilight Youth Orchestra in 2020 and the Orkestra Anak Indonesia in 2021. He was also chosen by Erwin Gutawa and the forum for developing Above Average talents (DARR) to record a performance in a special orchestra for the G20 opening ceremony. In 2018, Vif also participated in a Singapore Brass Festival masterclass with trumpeters Jon Dante, Lau Wen Rong and David Bilger.
He has always felt incredibly supported by his parents and his trumpet teachers. Vif’s current trumpet teachers are Lau Wen Rong, a section trumpeter in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Budi Wiryawan who performs in the Magenta Orchestra which is a modern pop orchestra based in Jakarta, Indonesia. When speaking about Jean-Vif, Mr. Rong says, “Vif is a very diligent, hardworking and determined student who possess great work ethic. He is always well prepared for lessons and is very open and receptive to any suggestions I may have. No matter how challenging the pieces I assign, he learns them well within one week and performs very well during lessons.”
Once Vif graduates from high school, his goal is to attend a music conservatory on a scholarship in order to study trumpet performance. In his spare time, he loves playing basketball, watching the Los Angeles Lakers, and working on his motorcycle and riding his dad’s KTM Adventure 250 motorcycle. Vif loves both pop and classical music and his favorite trumpet players to listen to are Dizzy Gilespie and Sergei Nakariakov. As the January 2023 ITG Young Artist Award winner, he will receive a one-year complimentary membership to ITG. Congratulations Jean-Vif!