A Systematical Evaluation on the Leyla Gencer Voice Competition

Several prestigious classical music competitions are organized in the national and international fields. These competitions, organized in the field such as performance and composition, motivate many young artists and allow them to achieve significant successes. The Leyla Gencer Voice Competition is an international and worldwide-known voice competition, which is the oldest and most important competition held in Turkey in the opera genre. Leyla Gencer, known as La Diva Turca and entitled as State Artist by the Turkish Republic, is one of our world-renowned artists, and with her pioneering character of music, she has made significant contributions to the promotion of the art of opera to our country and the announcement of Turkish opera singers to the world. Leyla Gencer Voice Competition has been organized with different frequencies starting from 1995 until 2018. This competition has been also held in the years after her death and it has maintained its prestige until today. From the past to the present, numerous great performers started their careers with prestigious music competitions such as Leyla Gencer Voice Competition. They achieved important career positions with their success of the competitions and now they are worldwide known artists. In this study, information about the life of Leyla Gencer, who made great contributions to the development of Turkish Opera art, was given; and the findings of the voice contest organized in her name were tabulated and interpreted by using document analysis methodology. The findings were created by systematical analysis of the information on the official website of the Leyla Gencer Voice Competition and the one in the archive of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts. Data regarding terms and conditions of the competition, audition processes, winners, awards, jury members for the preliminary auditions and finals, winners by country, Turkish award winners, number of awards received by Turkish award winners, distribution of award winners by voice type, distribution of award winners by gender, organizing institutions and gala concerts were evaluated and presented by classifying them according to years. As a result, the importance of the increase in prestigious competitions in our country, the increase in the motivation of young soloists, the creation of an archive of the competitions, and most importantly the establishment of a national federation of music competitions were emphasized.