Soprano Samantha Crawford has been awarded a Golden Medal with Honors in the First Berliner International Music Competition. The singer heads a series of Australian musicians who have achieved success in international competitions this month. The Berliner International Music Competition, in its first year, is judged by video submissions and awards prizes in three categories, Piano, Strings and Voice.

The Grand Prize Winners, who each received 2,500 Euros, were Sergey Sobolev in the Piano Category, violinist Haik Kazazyan in the Strings Category and tenor Sunghyun Kim in the Voice Category, with soprano Beatriz Díaz winning a recording deal with Orpheus Classical.

^{Soprano Samantha Crawford. Photo © Jeremy Hosking}

Crawford topped the Golden Medal winners in the Voice section as the only singer to be awarded Honors. Her competition success has been “wonderful and encouraging,” Crawford told Limelight. “I worked hard on the repertoire I chose and am thrilled to have such an esteemed jury award me the Golden Medal with Honors. There are so many elements of a competition you do not control, that I wanted to just pour my heart out when it came to finally the performing the arias....