AAF-2024

2023

In 2023, there were many international piano competitions again, revealing and confirming several of the world’s most promising young pianists. Two of them managed to take part in 17 competitions within this year … In February, the 5 th Takamatsu Int’l Piano Competition was held, for which 245 pianists had applied. After four rounds, the 10 jury members awarded the first prize to Philipp Lynov. The next day, the inaugural Ljubljana Festival International Competition for Piano started. Six finalists performed with orchestra in the main hall of the Cankarjev dom which was filled with an enthousiastic audience. Kai-min Chang took the 30,000 Euro first prize, while Yuanfan Yang was the first runner-up. In 2023, several other new international piano competitions emerged, such as the ones in Hilversum (Netherlands), Trapani (Italy), Genthod (Switzerland), Cagnes-sur-Mer (France), Kronberg (Germany), the Madrid IPC (Spain), Chopin Nashville (USA) and the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Competition in Brescia (Italy). The second half of March, the 17 th Arthur Rubinstein Competition took place. From the 39 selected pianists 32 came to Tel Aviv. After more than two weeks of great performances including chamber music and two concertos, Kevin Chan was declared the winner. In 2021 and 2022, he had also won the big competitions in Budapest and Geneva! A special Kyiv-Geneva edition of the Horowitz Competition was held in Geneva. Roman Fediurko won first prize and the audience prize. In June, the World Music Masters Competition in Monte Carlo (Monaco) had a special edition open for pianists and violinists (all of whom finalists of other international competitions). The piano competition was won by Aristo Sham. Meanhwile, the Aloha int’l piano competition was held in Honolulu. In July, the 2023 Sydney Competition was won by Jeonghwan Kim. At the same time, the Cleveland Young Artists competition was held for pianists up to 18 years of age. Elisey Mysin won the junior category and Sae-Hyun Kim the senior category. Elisey had also won the youngest category of the Schumann Competition in Düsseldorf in February. In October he competed in Nashville not in his own age category, but in the highest group (up to 22 years) where he also received the first prize! The special Sultanov award (US$ 20,000) was given to Kiron Atom Telian, who went six weeks later to Paris, ending up among the finalists of the Chopin edition of the Prix Animato. The top prize winners were 16 years old. The 64 th edition of the Busoni Competition had its final phase in August/September, which was won by Arsenii Mun by unanimous vote which had not happened in the past 28 years! The second international Chopin competition on period instruments in Warsaw was won by Eric Guo. In November the China Shenzhen int’l piano concerto competition was staged again after having been postponed several times due to covid. In December, the RNCM James Mottram competition in Manchester was won by Jung-Eun Kim. Both first prize and the audience award of the Telekom Beethoven Competition in Bonn went to Caleb Borick.

Alink-Argerich Foundation 2024