Canberra conductor Leonard “Lenny” Weiss was on Thursday judged co-winner, with Argentine-Italian conductor Fernando Oscar Gaggini, of the 21st Khachaturian International Competition, held in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

Staged in honour of the celebrated Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, the competition was staged in the 1400 seat Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall, with the competitors leading the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra.

Weiss, who is presently assistant conductor with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, will be conducting fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts in July.

A Canberra success story, for many years Weiss conducted with Canberra Youth Orchestra, Canberra Sinfonia, Maruki Community Orchestra, the National Capital Orchestra, the ANU Choral Society and most other major orchestras in the ACT.

He left town just before covid struck to study under conductor Marin Alsop at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, later returning to take up a Churchill Fellowship program and to conduct in NZ, then launching into an impressive round of conducting engagements.