7TH STEINWAY YOUTH PIANO COMPETITION / Review

7TH STEINWAY YOUTH 

PIANO COMPETITION

GRAND FINALS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (7 June 2025), 7 pm

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 June 2025 with the title "Mixed bag of performances by young talents in 7th Steinway Youth Piano Competition".

Alongside the National Piano & Violin Competition, the Steinway Youth Piano Competition is the most important mine for young local pianistic talent. Established in 2012 and now in its seventh edition, this biennial competition has identified winners like See Ning Hui, Hao Jia and Jessie Meng, all of whom have gone on to impress audiences home and abroad.

This year’s competition attracted 131 competitors from the ages of 4 to 51, in both Amateur and Professional classes. 15 pianists in three age categories of the Professional class vied for the Grand Prize, and a chance to represent Singapore in the regional finals to be held in Bangkok in August.

All of these young pianists are winners.

Several past Grand Prize winners were trotted back to perform in the award ceremony and concert, but these were unfortunately not in piano solos. Meng (2018 winner) accompanied award-winning 9-year-old violinist Travis Wong in a movement from Summer from Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Over-amplification of his violin resulted in a ghastly acoustic where the piano was drowned out. His violin’s voice should have been allowed to be heard without this garish boost.

The five finalists of Category 3
of the Professional Class
with piano judge Mary Wu.

Luther Ong (2022 winner) accompanied singer-songwriter Owen Li in Mariah Carey’s Hero, which was pleasant enough but seemed out of place for a mostly classical event. A Lied by Franz Schubert or Robert Schumann (with a different singer) would have been the more appropriate choice.

The first prize winners of the Professional Class got to play but were limited in short solos. Despite that, this was still the concert’s best part. Category 1 winner 11-year-old Zhao Ziwen impressed in Ren Guang’s Silver Clouds Chasing The Moon in the well-known arrangement by Wang Jianzhong. His mastery of its guzheng-like arpeggios, colours and shades made it stand out.

13-year-old Newman Tong Kai Han, winner in Category 2, barnstormed through Dmitri Kabalevsky’s Rondo in A minor, the commissioned set-piece for the 1958 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition. Its virtuoso prestidigitation and big gestures seemed like child’s play for him. Just listen to Van Cliburn’s live recording from Moscow, and one will find Tong’s effort very much up to the mark.

Speaking of comparisons, 15-year-old Edward Fang Yanli (Category 3 winner) would have done Argentine virtuosa Martha Argerich proud with his no-holds-barred take of Alberto Ginastera’s Argentinian Dance No.3. He has been well taught, not just in technique but interpretive idioms as well. 

With everything said and done, the 7th Steinway Grand Prize was awarded to the diminutive Tong, whose confidence and pluck punched far above his weight.

In an attempt to be inclusive, the concert closed with the Disney song Part of Your World (from The Little Mermaid) sung by Li, young vocalist Czarina Oswald-Lim and Shalom Ng (2022 Amateur class winner), accompanied on piano four hands by Meng and Will Oswald. This was just unfortunate, being embarrassingly off-key in parts.

The winners and the piano jury, comprising
Boris Kraljevic, Ning An, Pascal Nemirovski,
Peter Takacs & Mary Wu.

Without trying to sound snobbish, Steinway is an exclusive maker of high end pianos, and should stick to what it does best. That is to showcase its masterpieces in the best light with the best kind of music possible.

Grand Prize winner Newman Tong
with his teacher Winnie Tay.