Conductor Song Min-gyu conducts at the 13th edition of the Guido Cantelli International Conducting Award held at the Coccia Theatre in Novara, Italy, Sunday. He won the first prize. Screen captured from Premio Cantelli's social media account

Conductor Song Min-gyu has notched the highest honor at the 13th edition of the Guido Cantelli International Conducting Award.

The 31-year-old conductor won the accolade at the award's finals at the Coccia Theatre in Novara, Italy, on Sunday, beating three contenders — Giovanni Conti and Aram Khacheh from Italy and Luka Hauser from Germany.

Along with the prize of 12,000 euros ($13,181), the Korean conductor won the newly created Management Agencies Jury Award, presented by Mark Hildrew from the London-based music management company Askonas Holt and Nicholas Mathias from the global performing arts management company IMG Artists. The award recognizes the conductor's potential to be successful in the music market.

He also received the Orchestra Award, presented by the Orchestra Sinfonia di Milano's Concertmaster Luca Santaniello.

Founded in 1961, the award invites young conductors aged between 18 and 35 from around the world. It has been widely recognized as a stepping stone for rising conductors. Renowned conductors like Riccardo Muti, Adam Fischer and Hubert Soudant are previous recipients of the award.

The award reached its 10th edition in 1980 and was revived in 2020. It has been held biennially since then.

This year, there were 241 applicants, the most in the award's history. Only 18 candidates made it into the preliminary stages, and then 10 were eliminated for the semi-final. Four candidates competed for the finalist position.

"The level of the Cantelli Award increases year after year and in this third edition since its revival in 2020. About 63 years after its foundation, it powerfully reaffirms its commitment to its founding principles: To serve the talent of the new generation of international conductors and to fulfill its promise of bringing Novara to the world, thanks to the name and fame of Cantelli," Corinne Baroni, the director of the Coccia Theater, said in a statement.

This year's president of the jury was Gunter Neuhold, an internationally renowned Austrian conductor. Juries included conductors and representatives from prestigious institutions like Riccardo Frizza, the artistic advisor at Premio Cantelli and Cristina Rocca, the vice president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association.

In August of this year, Song won second prize at the Second Hiroshima International Conducting Competition, regarded as one of the two most prestigious awards alongside the Tokyo International Conducting Competition. He also won the Orchestra Prize at the Erich Bergel International Conducting Competition in 2022.