Final selection for the Pablo Casals International Award for Young Cellists was made virtually on 20th November 2020. The ten finalist candidates performed two pieces which they recorded for the jury to watch. The jury, chaired by Marta Casals Istomin, Co-founder and Vice-president of the Pau Casals Foundation, was made up of internationally renowned cellists such as Claudio Bohórquez, Henri Demarquette, Gustav Rivinus, Arnau Tomàs (winner of the Pablo Casals Scholarship in 1991), and also Bernard Meillat, artistic advisor of the Pau Casals Foundation and secretary of the jury, and deliberated by videoconference, in a virtual edition due to Covid-19.
Petar Pejčić, student at HMT Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (Germany). Born in Leskovac, Serbia, in 2002. He started playing the cello at the age of 4 and gave his first concert in Belgrade at the age of 9. In 2008 he won his first competition and since then he has won several international competitions, among them the 3rd prize Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Berlin and the 2nd prize at the Anna Kull international competition in Graz. He has given solo concerts and has also performed with orchestras such as the Belgrade Chamber Orchestra and the Belgrade Radio Symphony Orchestra. He is currently studying at the HMT Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Leipzig with Peter Bruns.