WINNERS OF INTERNATIONAL TCHAIKOVSKY PIANO COMPETITION 2011 NAMED

The winners of the International Tchiakovsky Piano Competition 2011, held in Moscow over the past two weeks, have been named. Two Koreans featured in the top three placings, confirming South Korea as a new international force in the world of piano competitions.

The final placings were as follows:

1. DANIIL TRIFONOV (Russia)

2. YEOL-EUM SON (South Korea)

3. SEONG JIN CHO (South Korea)

4. ALEXANDER ROMANOVSKY (Ukraine)

5. ALEXEI CHERNOV (Russia)

Son was also awarded the Special Prize for performance of the newly commissioned work by Rodion Shchedrin and Mozart Concerto Prize. Alexander Romanovsky was awarded the Special Vladimir Krainev Award (whatever that means), while Pavel Kolesnikov and Francois-Xavier Poizat received Jury Discretionary Awards.

This must be an annus mirabilis for Trifonov, having won 1st Prize in the Arthur Rubinstein Competition last month, and 3rd prize in the Chopin International Piano Competition in 2010. Son was a Silver medallist in the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, while Cho was the 1st prize winner in the 2009 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition. Well done! Hope to see you in Singapore sometime soon!

The 2 hour long (and staggeringly boring) prize-award ceremony may be viewed here:

http://pitch.paraclassics.com/#/live/piano

Its attempt to simulate Hollywood's Academy Awards ceremony truly fell flat, as it started 50 minutes late, and bored with the sheer lack of pizazz. And by the looks on the faces of the finalists, it appears that all of them had known the result before hand (Piano's 5th prize Alexei Chernov does nothing to hide his bitter disappointment and utter contempt). There was no suspense whatsoever to the proceedings. There are speeches by Valery Gergiev and Van Cliburn, and most touching of all, a special tribute to Vladimir Krainev (with a speech by his widow Tatiana Tarasova). The Gala Concerts should hopefully be of greater interest.