The International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors, is a music competition for young conductors in the city of Besançon, France.
The competition was organized for the first time in 1951 by the music and film critic and composer Émile Vuillermoz, as part of the Besançon International Music Festival, founded three years before. Many conductors who won the competition have established successful international careers, including Seiji Ozawa, Ali Rahbari, Jesús López-Cobos and Sylvain Cambreling.
The first prize consists of a cash prize and engagements with important orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble orchestral contemporain, Dresden Philharmonic and Opera North Sinfonia.
1951 Reinhard Peters1952 Jean Périsson1953 Peter Traunfellner1954 Peter Chaille1955 Jerzy Katlewicz1956 Zdeněk Košler, first mention Sergiu Comissiona1957 Jean Lapierre1958 Martin Turnovsky1959 Seiji Ozawa1960 Poul Jorgensen1961 Pierre Hetu1962 Vladimir Kojoukharov1963 Aloïs Springer1964 Emil Simon1965 Zdeněk Mácal1966 no first prize awarded1967 Yuval Zaliouk, junior section Luis Antonio García Navarro1968 Jesús López-Cobos and Philippe Bender1969 no first prize awarded1970 Stéphane Cardon1971 no first prize awarded1972 Jacques Mercier (conductor)1973 no first prize awarded1974 Alex Veelo, 2nd prize Sylvain Cambreling1975 Marc Soustrot1976 Patrick Juzeau1977 Tomas Koutnik and Ali Rahbari1978 Yoel Levi1979 Doron Salomon1980 Jonathan Seers1981 Philippe Cambreling1982 Yôko Matsuo and Osmo Vänskä1983 Michael Zilm, mention for Carlo Rizzi1984 Wolfgang Doerner1985 Wing-Sie Yip, 2nd prize Rodolfo Saglimbeni.1986 Gilles Auger1987 Nicolás Pasquet1988 Lü Shao-chia1989 Christopher Gayford and Yutaka Sado1990 Ryusuke Numajiri1991 George Pehlivanian1992 Tommaso Placidi1993 Silvia Massarelli and Daisuke Soga1995 Tetsuro Ban1994 Lü Shao-chia1997 Marco Parisotto1999 Alvaro Albiach-Fernandez2001 Tatsuya Shimono2003 no first prize awarded2005 Lionel Bringuier2007 Darrell Ang2009 Kazuki Yamada2011 Yuki Kakiuchi2013 Yao-Yu Wu2015 Jonathon Heyward