Images from the 2018 competition

One conductor had caught the eye of the ensemble’s founder Emil Holm. He was a St Petersburg-trained Ukrainian named Nicolai Andrejevitj Malko, who had just defected from the Soviet Union.

Holm managed to lure Malko to Copenhagen, and on 28 January 1930, the conductor met the orchestra for the first time. ‘Work ethic and sense of discipline – remarkable,’ wrote Malko in his diary. ‘An excellent young orchestra.’