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.
Raffaella Cardaropoli, Student at Barenboim-Said Akademie (Berlin). Born in Mercato San Severino, Italy, in 1999, she started playing the cello at the age of seven. She has performed in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Malta, Austria and Spain, among other countries, and has won several competitions, such as the Abbado Prize, Antonio Janigro Cello Competition, as well as auditions at the Santa Cecilia Academy. She is currently studying at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin under Professor Frans Helmerson.