AAF-2024

Junior Pianists More and more organisers pay attention to musicians of (very) young age. Also several of the established competitions that have been major events for pianists aged up to 30 or 32 for

many years, created separate competitions for the youth. It is interesting to see the history and the developments:

Artists competition (ages up to 30 or 32) started in:

Junior competition (ages up to 18) since:

Salt Lake City (usa) "Bachauer" Weimar (frg) "Liszt" Orléans (f) "20 th -21 st Century" Minneapolis (usa) "e-Competition" New Orleans (usa) Eppan (it) Piano Academy Hilton Head (usa) Seregno (it) "Pozzoli" Cantù (it) (Y: Barlassina) Fort Worth (usa) "Cliburn" Cleveland (usa) Glasgow (sct) Düsseldorf (frg) "Anton Rubinstein" Lleida (esp) "R. Viñes" Finale Ligure (it) "Palma d’Oro" Trento (it) "Roberto Melini" Orbetello (it)

1976 1994 1994 2002 1989 2009 1996 1959 1991 1962 1975 1990 2013 1995 1974 2015 2017 2005 1993 2012

1987 2005 2005 2008

2009-2011* 2011-2020* 2011 2012 2013-2015* 2015 2015 2016 2017 2017 2017-2019* 2019 2019 2020 2020-2022* 2021

Aachen (frg) "MozArte" Grosseto (it) "Scriabin" Verona (it)

* a few competitions stopped having a separate category for junior pianists: New Orleans (2011), Manchester " Mottram " (2012), Barlassina (2015), Eppan (2020), Finale Ligure and Grosseto . In 2015, the organisers of the Van Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth (Texas, USA) and the organisers of the Cleveland Int’l Piano Competition launched an international competition for Junior Pianists. Naturally, there are many competitions that have always specifically focused on offering the younger pianists an international platform, such as the competition in Ettlingen (frg) since 1988, the competition in New York since 2002, Oberlin (since 1995), Århus (dan) since 2011, Enschede (hol) since 2001, Szafarnia (pol) since 1993, etc. It is a great pleasure to be at such events. One may hear truly magnificent performances and discover wonderful talented pianists at young age, such as Yuja Wang, Lang Lang, Yundi Li, Markus Groh, Boris Giltburg, to mention just a few, at the start of their careers. On the next pages, it can be seen which competitions from among the ones affiliated with AAF, offer special age categories for young pianists. (The age brackets are only indicative.)

Alink-Argerich Foundation 2024