Winner's Speech | Sebastián Andrés Requena Do Carmo | Vivaldi International Music Competition 2026
- Jun 6
- 3 min read
🎉 Congratulations to Sebastián Andrés Requena Do Carmo! We are thrilled to celebrate this talented young composer from Finland for being awarded the Second Prize in the Original Composition category for his remarkable work, What The Heart Desires, at the Vivaldi International Music Competition 2026 Season 1 (Season Period: 19 December 2025 – 19 March 2026).
In his winner’s statement, Sebastián reflects on the inspiration behind What The Heart Desires, a deeply personal composition created alongside an original poem exploring themes of humanity, meaning, and love. He also shares his gratitude to his family and girlfriend for their unwavering encouragement, as well as his appreciation for the opportunity to present his music to an international audience. We are delighted to share his reflections and the story behind this award-winning work below. 🎼✨
“Hello dears,
I'm Sebastián Requena second prize winner of the 2026 Vivaldi International Music Competition in the category of Original Composition. First of all I will like to thank you for this amazing opportunity, I'm always glad to share my music with the world, specially to people that value it. I will also thank my family for always being there supporting me and celebrating each win in life. I thank also my girlfriend for sending me the link for this competition and insisting on making me participate, since normally I dislike competition atmospheres, that's why it took me so long to participate on my first one, but I'm really glad I did.
My piece What The Heart Desires, is a piece I wrote alongside a poem for a project of mine. The goal was telling what humanity is missing nowadays, and how that is what our hearts truly need. I wrote this piece inspiring from my poem and vice versa. For better context, here is the poem:
A heart lost
hard to ignore
An empty soul
searching for gold
A selfish mind
cannot be kind
It wastes time in all the lies
But deep-down life is simple
The answer we all seek, lives within
Some say “be unsinful”
Some search for what’s meaningful
But we have been drifting
Vanishing into oblivion
Moving apart from our origin,
our home, our goal, our beginning
But forgotten all the past we have
All that’s left is what we have
For some is enough (plenty), for others not
For most, they don’t know what they lost
Some say, it’s already late to make a change
Shameless, to live without meaning
feel without feelings,
quit without trying
So, we have become weak
Is it really happiness what we all seek?
The heart and mind straightforward are
Sit and listen for awhile
Within us nature (surely) lives
That’s our most neglected side
Pay attention to all the cries
Covered by all the noise
Replaced with momentary joy
The real solution we ignored
The heart desires what we all know
But we lack its most pure form
It’s never been a mystery
It's written in the history
It’s all we should care for
The phenomenon called LOVE.
- By Sebastián Requena.“
The Vivaldi International Music Competition is an online competition open to musicians of all ages worldwide. Founded in honour of Antonio Vivaldi, the competition provides a global platform for musicians to showcase their talent, gain international recognition, and support their artistic development in the digital era. 🎶 Learn more: www.vivaldicompetition.com
