The Vice Chancellor and Principal of Sydney University, Prof. Gavin Brown launched the Application/Audition Booklet for the 2004 Competition at the Seymour Theatre Centre in August 2002, with the Booklet being available on the Competition website from that date also.
Requests for the booklet had been arriving at the Competition office for some two years before its launch. When preparing the Booklet, there were a number of small changes and additions to the repertoire requirements. The repertoire requirements allow the competitors to choose 70% of the works they will play together with a range of works in the set categories of virtuoso Étude, Debussy Prelude, Classical Sonata, etc. The set categories require the competitor to perform a range of styles.
Almost 250 applicants aged from 17 to no more than 30 were received by the closing date of 1st December 2003 from some 42 countries. Auditions were then scheduled in nine cities – Vienna, Hamburg, Paris, Moscow, London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Sydney – with assistance from the piano manufacturers Bösendorfer, Kawai, Steinway and Yamaha in providing venues. Panels of three, which included the Artistic Director, Warren Thomson OAM, were established in each city. Unedited videos were allowed from the People’s Republic of China, South Africa and South America.
The final 36 selected pianists, together with a Reserve list of 9, were announced at a Reception at Sydney Town Hall hosted by the Chief Commissioner, Ms Lucy Turnbull. Ms Turnbull also selected one name – the person to be first to perform – with others to follow alphabetically. The selected pianists came from 19 countries.
The Friends of SIPCA organised groups to assist with the staging of the Competition. Each of the groups – Meet and Greet, Backstage, Program Sellers, Green Room, Jury Room and Billeting were headed by a co-ordinator from the Council of the Friends. Some 60 members of the Friends were involved in the activities, providing wonderful support, encouragement and assistance in a variety of ways to Jurors, Competitors and not least to the general public.
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Wentworth Hotel Press Conference: Jayson Gillham, Alice Demske, James Jae-Won Moon and Viv McLean
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The Competition Press Conference was held at the Wentworth Hotel on 30th June with over 160 in attendance. The jury was introduced – Nancy Bricard, Aquiles Delle-Vigne, Alexander Jenner, Xiang-Dong Kong, Piers Lane, William Lyne, John O’Conor and Arie Vardi.
The Opening Recital was given by Piers Lane - a prizewinner in the First Competition in 1977 - with a Program including works by Vivaldi/Bach arr. Murdoch, Scriabin, Chopin and Rachmaninov. This Recital launched the Competition at a very high level – a level that was maintained throughout the Competition itself at the Seymour Centre and the Sydney Opera House.
Kawai, Steinway and Yamaha provided 20 new pianos for practice for the competitors as well as displays in the Foyers at the Seymour Centre and Concert Grands for the ‘warm-up’ Hall and Concert stage.
ABC Classic FM broadcast all stages of the Competition live throughout Australia and New Zealand and worldwide on the Internet. The audiences continued to grow as the Competition progressed with near ‘full houses’ in the York Theatre at the Seymour Centre in Stage IV. Audience numbers were considerably higher at all Stages then in the year 2000, culminating in a ‘full house’ for the Presentation of Prizes on 17th July. Gerard Willems provided the commentary throughout all stages of the Competition. His reviews of the performances were very highly regarded by the radio audience and also members of the audience who could be seen at intervals with headphones listening to ABC Classic FM.
Pre-Concert talks by Em Prof. Michael Brimer were introduced under the sponsorship of Theme & Variations. The talks covered repertoire from Stages I & II and were held in the foyer of the Seymour Centre and were well attended. The topics were: Rachmaninov’s Études Tableaux, Chopin’s Études, Liszt’s keyboard works, Debussy’s Préludes, Scriabin’s keyboard works, and Twentieth Century keyboard composers. The audiences from the very beginning through to Stage V were wonderfully supportive of every pianist’s perfomance.
At the conclusion of Stage II it was evident that the jury would have an extremely difficult task in selecting just 20 to move on to Stage III, as there were so many outstanding performances in a wide range of repertoire. The jury voted for the “special prizes” applicable at this stage of the Competition. After Stage II they voted for the Best Performance of the Virtuoso Study and Debussy Prelude.
In Stage III, a classical sonata and two newly-commissioned Australian works were included. The Australian works received careful preparation with performances showing a number of quite different interpretations. The composers were very gratified that their new works provided such a range of approaches that were convincing. Once again there began the very difficult task of selecting the twelve to proceed to the next Stage.
Despite their enthusiastic support for each pianists after their performances the audience by this time has a number of favourites. Stage IV gave the opportunity to perform in a piano trio, and also present major large-scale solo works. Some competitors were less experienced with performing in the Chamber Music than in solo works.
Voting at the end of Stage IV saw 6 selected for the Finals – two concertos. The Mozart Concertos were performed in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House with the Australian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Christoph Poppen. One competitor, Rem Urasin, composed his own cadenza for the first movement of KV 491 in c minor. The 19th/20th Century Concertos were performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by János Fürst. Even though there was list of 26 concertos by 11 composers to choose from, both concerts had concertos by Russian composers – Prokofiev 2 & 3, Rachmaninov 2 & 3 and Tchaikovsky 1. Voting at this stage ranked the players from 1-6.
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1st Prize-winner John Chen, performing after the prizegiving at the Sydney Opera House.
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The Presentation of Prizes was held in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House with prizes presented by the Competitor’s Founder, Claire Dan AM, OBE, and the Patron Her Excellency Prof Marie Bashir AC, Governor of New South Wales, followed by the six Finalists each performing a short recital of piano solos.
In the week following the Competition the first three prizewinners began Recital Tours throughout mainland Australia in all States, Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory – a total of almost 50 events. Overseas engagements are scheduled in 2005 and 2006 with the 1st Prizewinner returning to Australia for a tour in 2006 also.
From the many emails, letters and telephone calls from both the radio and live audiences there was an overwhelming feeling that the 8th Sydney International Piano Competition was ‘the best yet’. The only regret expressed was that they had to wait another four years before the next Competition took place!
- Warren Thomson OAM
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Although Anna Malikova won 5th prize in the 1992 Sydney Piano Competition, she was even more successful in the 1993 ARD Piano Competition in Munich, Germany, in which she won 1st Prize. The ARD is one of the major international music competitions of Europe and this success brought Anna many concert bookings in the following years. Many were in Germany, where she now lives, but over the years she has also given concerts in many European countries, South America and Asia. She has also recorded many CDs.
Immediately after leaving Sydney, Piers Lane went to perform at the Newport Festival, USA. A recent recording of concert studies by Moscheles has the following review in the BBC Music Magazine. “This disc conclusively demonstrates how much more significant and individual is the composer’s contributions to the development of the piano and its literature than his current low profile would suggest. The studies – nearer in character, though not in their technical demands, to Liszt’s Études de Concert than to Chopin’s Op 10 and 25 – are given the best possible welcome from exile by Lane’s brilliant advocacy. …. Occasionally, Lane pushes the somewhat nasal-toned Steinway into the clatter zone, a mild quibble in the face of these powerfully projected, real (as opposed to studio-manufactured) performances. Hyperion’s customary excellent booklet is by Henry Roches, Moscheles’s great-great-grandson.” Jeremy Nicholas
In November 2004 Bernd Glemser will give a world premiere of a new edition of the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig – the orchestra that had Mendelssohn as its chief conductor, and which premiered a number of his works.
Manana Doidjashvili was the 6th prizewinner in the first Sydney International Piano Competition in 1977. She is now director of the Conservatory of Music in Tbilisi, Georgia and is director of the Tbilisi International Piano Competition. In the 2nd Competition in 2001, Daniel Hill won the 3rd prize. The 3rd Competition will be held in October 2005 and Warren Thomson will be a member of the jury.
• Solo piano recital by Evgeny Ukhanov. Sunday, 7 November, 3pm.
