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.
Tzu-Shao Chao, student at Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (Germany). Born in Changhua, Taiwan, in 2001, he began playing the cello at the age of four and has participated in several competitions in Asia and Europe, including the Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. He has been studying at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln in Germany under Professor Maria Kliegel since 2018 and has participated in several masterclasses with renowned cellists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Reiner Ginzel and Marion Feldmann.