The IX Sydney International Piano Competition

Sydney International Piano Competition

The Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia is a music competition, presented by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in association with the University of Sydney and broadcast live throughout Australia. It is held every four years, over a three-week period in July-August, and is...

took place at the Seymour Centre

The Seymour Centre

The Seymour Centre is a multi-purpose performing arts centre within the University of Sydney, NSW in the Australian city of Sydney. It is located on the corner of City Rd and Cleveland St in Chippendale, an inner-circle suburb, just south-west of the city centre.The building was designed by...

 in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 from 16 July to 2 August 2008.

It was won by Konstantin Shamray

Konstantin Shamray

Konstantin Shamray is a Russian pianist.A student at the Gnessin State Musical College, he won second prize at the 2007 Higher Academies of Music Competition and won a Gold Medal at the 2007 Russian Delphic Games. One year later, Shamray won the Sydney International Piano Competition...

.

Jury

Warren Thomson

Warren Thomson

Warren Milton Thomson OAM is an Australian pianist, music editor, music educator and piano competition juror. He is best known in Australia as Artistic Director and Chairman of the jury of the Sydney International Piano Competition since its inception in 1977. He auditions all the entrants,...

 (chairman) Michael Brimer

Michael Brimer

Michael Brimer is a pianist, organist, conductor, composer, and academic.He was born in South Africa and studied with Eleanor Bonnar, a pupil of Leopold Godowsky. He continued studies at the University of Cape Town, the Royal College of Music, the Royal School of Church Music in London and at the...

 Manana Doidjashvili

Manana Doidjashvili

Manana Doidjashvili is a Georgian pianist.She was trained at the Tbilisi State Conservatory under Tengiz Amiredjibi. She was prized at the 1970 Enescu and 1974 Smetana competitions, and ranked 6th at the inaugural edition of the Sydney Competition.Doidjashvili is the rector of the Tbilisi State...

 Aquiles Delle Vigne

Aquiles Delle Vigne

Aquiles Delle Vigne , a pupil of Claudio Arrau, Eduardo del Pueyo and György Cziffra, is a concert pianist and a teacher from Argentina.-Early life:...

 Norma Fisher

Norma Fisher

-Biography:Norma Fisher was born in London of Russian-Polish parents. She was soon recognised as "a rare musical talent" winning an exhibition at the age of eleven, to study with Sidney Harrison at the Guildhall School of Music...

Choong-Mo Kang Ian Munro

Ian Munro (pianist)

Ian Munro is an Australian pianist, composer, writer and music educator. His career has taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia.-Biography:...

 Arie Vardi

Arie Vardi

Arie Vardi is an Israeli classical pianist and piano pedagogue.He is currently teaching at the Buhmann-Mehta Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover and at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Brunswick, Maine...

 Zhou Guangren

Prizes

	Winner
1st Grand Prize	Konstantin Shamray Konstantin Shamray Konstantin Shamray is a Russian pianist.A student at the Gnessin State Musical College, he won second prize at the 2007 Higher Academies of Music Competition and won a Gold Medal at the 2007 Russian Delphic Games. One year later, Shamray won the Sydney International Piano Competition...
2nd Prize	Tatyana Kolesova
3rd Prize	Ran Dank Ran Dank Ran Dank is an Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, USA.-Early life:Dank started playing the piano at the age of seven with Yaakov Krantz. He went on to work with Liora Peleg at the Givaataim Conservatory, and from 1994 until 2002 he studied with Professor Vadim Monastirsky...
4th Prize	Takashi Sato
5th Prize	Tomoki Kitamura
6th Prize	Eric Zuber
Australian SQ Australian String Quartet The Australian String Quartet is a prominent Australian string quartet, which presents an annual program of chamber music throughout Australia and internationally....  engagement	Konstantin Shamray
People's Choice Prize	Konstantin Shamray
Best Female competitor	Tatyana Kolesova
Best Australian competitor	Hoang Pham
Best Australian Music performance	Tomoki Kitamura
Best Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...  Concerto performance	Konstantin Shamray
Best overall Concerto performance	Ran Dank Ran Dank Ran Dank is an Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, USA.-Early life:Dank started playing the piano at the age of seven with Yaakov Krantz. He went on to work with Liora Peleg at the Givaataim Conservatory, and from 1994 until 2002 he studied with Professor Vadim Monastirsky...
Best 19th/20th century Concerto performance	Konstantin Shamray
Best Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...  performance	Konstantin Shamray
Best Chopin Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....  performance	Takashi Sato
Best Liszt Franz Liszt Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...  performance	Eric Zuber
Best Liszt Study performance	Charlie Albright Charlie Albright Charlie Albright is an American-born classical pianist. He is a 2010 Gilmore Young Artist, an official Steinway Artist, and is under management with Young Concert Artists, Inc...
Best Rachmaninoff Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...  performance	Ran Dank Ran Dank Ran Dank is an Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, USA.-Early life:Dank started playing the piano at the age of seven with Yaakov Krantz. He went on to work with Liora Peleg at the Givaataim Conservatory, and from 1994 until 2002 he studied with Professor Vadim Monastirsky...
Best Chamber Music performance	Tatyana Kolesova
Best Mozart performance	Konstantin Shamray
Best Schubert Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...  performance	Tomoki Kitamura
Best Debussy Claude Debussy Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...  Prélude Preludes (Debussy) Claude Debussy's Préludes are two sets of pieces for solo piano. They are divided into two separate livres, or books, of twelve preludes each. Unlike previous collections of preludes, like those of JS Bach and Chopin, Debussy's do not follow a strict pattern of key signatures.Each book was written...  performance	Ran Dank Ran Dank Ran Dank is an Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, USA.-Early life:Dank started playing the piano at the age of seven with Yaakov Krantz. He went on to work with Liora Peleg at the Givaataim Conservatory, and from 1994 until 2002 he studied with Professor Vadim Monastirsky...
Best Russian Music performance	Tatyana Kolesova
Best Romantic Music overall performance	Yoonsoo Rhee
Best Haydn Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...  Sonata performance	Yoonsoo Rhee
Lev Vlasenko Lev Vlasenko World-renowned international concert pianist and teacher, Lev Vlassenko born in Tbilisi, 1928; died in Brisbane, 1996) He won the First Prize in the 1956 Franz Liszt Competition and was second to Van Cliburn at the I-st Tchaikovsky Competition two years later.In 1991 he was decorated a People's...  Memorial Prize	Daniil Tsvetkov
I Round Encouragement Award	Feng Zhang
Quarter-Finals Encouragement Award	Alexei Yemtsov
Semi-finals Encouragement Award	Mariangela Vacatello
Youngest finalist	Tomoki Kitamura
Youngest Australian competitor	Hoang Pham

Works commissioned for the competition

• Andrew Ford
  Andrew Ford
  Andrew Ford is an English and Australian composer, writer and radio presenter.He was Composer-in-residence with the Australian Chamber Orchestra , held the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer Fellowship from 1998 to 2000 and was awarded a two-year fellowship by the Music Board of the Australia Council...
  
   - Thin air
• Roger Smalley
  Roger Smalley
  Roger Smalley AM is a British-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley is currently a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in Perth and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney.-Biography:Smalley was born in Swinton, Lancashire,...
  
   - Morceau de Concours

First Round

16–17 July 2008
Charlie Albright

Charlie Albright

Charlie Albright is an American-born classical pianist. He is a 2010 Gilmore Young Artist, an official Steinway Artist, and is under management with Young Concert Artists, Inc...

Fernando Altamura Manuel Araujo Marco Ciampi Sean Chen Ran Dank

Ran Dank

Ran Dank is an Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, USA.-Early life:Dank started playing the piano at the age of seven with Yaakov Krantz. He went on to work with Liora Peleg at the Givaataim Conservatory, and from 1994 until 2002 he studied with Professor Vadim Monastirsky...

Christopher Devine John Fisher Balázs Fülei

Balázs Fülei

Balázs Fülei, the renowned Hungarian pianist was born in Kecskemét, Hungary 1984. He started to learn music at the age of eight, his first teacher was Katonáné Szabó Judit...

 David Fung

David Fung

- Professional career :In 2002, David Fung won the Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award, after four rounds of competition which culminated in his performance of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Sydney Symphony during the concerto finals at the Sydney Opera...

Adam Herd Elizaveta Ivanova Miya Kazauka Tomoki Kitamura Tatyana Kolesova Eduard Kunz

Eduard Kunz

Eduard Kunz , born October 30 1980, Omsk, - Russian pianist.- Biography :Named among 10 tomorrow's great pianists by the BBC Music Magazine, Eduard Kunz has performed and broadcast frequently with almost every major orchestra in the UK including BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Concert Orchestra,...

 Ka-Ling Colleen Lee

Colleen Lee

Colleen Lee Ka-ling is a Hong Kong pianist who won the 6th place prize in the 15th International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in 2005.-Biography:...

 Miyeon Lee
Ryan McEvoy McCullough José Menor Martín Hoang Pham Yoonsoo Rhee Sergey Saratovsky Takashi Sato Konstantin Shamray

Konstantin Shamray

Konstantin Shamray is a Russian pianist.A student at the Gnessin State Musical College, he won second prize at the 2007 Higher Academies of Music Competition and won a Gold Medal at the 2007 Russian Delphic Games. One year later, Shamray won the Sydney International Piano Competition...

Yekwon Sunwoo Daniil Tsvetkov Mariangela Vacatello Xun Wang Wojciech Wisniewski Alexei Yemtsov Chun-Chieh Yen Feng Zhang Xi-Xi Zhou Hao Zhu Eric Zuber

Quarterfinals

21–22 July 2008
Charlie Albright Fernando Altamura Sean Chen Ran Dank

Ran Dank

Ran Dank is an Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, USA.-Early life:Dank started playing the piano at the age of seven with Yaakov Krantz. He went on to work with Liora Peleg at the Givaataim Conservatory, and from 1994 until 2002 he studied with Professor Vadim Monastirsky...

Christopher Devine David Fung

David Fung

- Professional career :In 2002, David Fung won the Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award, after four rounds of competition which culminated in his performance of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Sydney Symphony during the concerto finals at the Sydney Opera...

 Tomoki Kitamura Tatyana Kolesova Miyeon Lee José Menor Martín
Hoang Pham Yoonsoo Rhee Sergey Saratovsky Takashi Sato Konstantin Shamray

Konstantin Shamray

Konstantin Shamray is a Russian pianist.A student at the Gnessin State Musical College, he won second prize at the 2007 Higher Academies of Music Competition and won a Gold Medal at the 2007 Russian Delphic Games. One year later, Shamray won the Sydney International Piano Competition...

Daniil Tsvetkov Mariangela Vacatello Alexei Yemtsov Hao Zhu Eric Zuber

Semifinals

23–25 July 2008
Charlie Albright

Charlie Albright

Charlie Albright is an American-born classical pianist. He is a 2010 Gilmore Young Artist, an official Steinway Artist, and is under management with Young Concert Artists, Inc...

 Ran Dank

Ran Dank

Ran Dank is an Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, USA.-Early life:Dank started playing the piano at the age of seven with Yaakov Krantz. He went on to work with Liora Peleg at the Givaataim Conservatory, and from 1994 until 2002 he studied with Professor Vadim Monastirsky...

Tomoki Kitamura Tatyana Kolesova Miyeon Lee Hoang Pham
Yoonsoo Rhee Takashi Sato Konstantin Shamray

Konstantin Shamray

Konstantin Shamray is a Russian pianist.A student at the Gnessin State Musical College, he won second prize at the 2007 Higher Academies of Music Competition and won a Gold Medal at the 2007 Russian Delphic Games. One year later, Shamray won the Sydney International Piano Competition...

Daniil Tsvetkov Mariangela Vacatello Eric Zuber

Final

29 July-2 August 2008

• Concertos
  •   Ran Dank
    Ran Dank
    Ran Dank is an Israeli classical pianist, who currently lives in New York, USA.-Early life:Dank started playing the piano at the age of seven with Yaakov Krantz. He went on to work with Liora Peleg at the Givaataim Conservatory, and from 1994 until 2002 he studied with Professor Vadim Monastirsky...
    
     --- Mozart
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
    
    : 20th
    Piano Concerto No. 20 (Mozart)
    The Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1785. The first performance took place at the Mehlgrube Casino in Vienna on February 11, 1785, with the composer as the soloist.-Background:...
    
    , Prokofiev
    Sergei Prokofiev
    Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
    
    : 3rd
    Piano Concerto No. 3 (Prokofiev)
    Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26 is the best-known concerto by Sergei Prokofiev. It was completed in 1921 using sketches first started in 1913.-Composition and performances:...
    
    
  •   Tomoki Kitamura --- Mozart: 17th
    Piano Concerto No. 17 (Mozart)
    The Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, KV. 453, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was written in 1784.The work is orchestrated for solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings...
    
    , Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
    
    : 4th
    Piano Concerto No. 4 (Beethoven)
    Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, was composed in 1805–1806, although no autograph copy survives.-Musical forces and movements:...
    
    
  •   Tatyana Kolesova --- Mozart: 20th, Saint-Saëns
    Camille Saint-Saëns
    Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
    
    : 2nd
    Piano Concerto No. 2 (Saint-Saëns)
    The Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22 by Camille Saint-Saëns, was composed in 1868 and is probably Saint-Saëns' most popular piano concerto. It was dedicated to Madame A. de Villers née de Haber. At the première, the composer was the soloist and Anton Rubinstein conducted the orchestra...
    
    
  •   Takashi Sato --- Mozart: 27th
    Piano Concerto No. 27 (Mozart)
    The Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major, K. 595, is a concertante work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for piano or fortepiano and orchestra, the last piano concerto he wrote.-Time of composition:The manuscript is dated 5 January 1791...
    
    , Beethoven: 5th
    Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)
    The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven's patron and pupil...
    
    
  •   Konstantin Shamray
    Konstantin Shamray
    Konstantin Shamray is a Russian pianist.A student at the Gnessin State Musical College, he won second prize at the 2007 Higher Academies of Music Competition and won a Gold Medal at the 2007 Russian Delphic Games. One year later, Shamray won the Sydney International Piano Competition...
    
    --- Mozart: 27th; Prokofiev: 2nd
    Piano Concerto No. 2 (Prokofiev)
    Sergei Prokofiev set to work on his Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16 in 1912 and completed it in 1913. Performing as solo pianist, he premiered the work on August 23 the same year at Pavlovsk. Most of the audience reacted intensely...
    
    
  •   Eric Zuber --- Mozart: 20th, Tchaikovsky
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
    
    : 1st
    Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)
    The Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between November 1874 and February 1875. It was revised in the summer of 1879 and again in December 1888. The first version received heavy criticism from Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky's desired pianist....