TOMORROW it begins in earnest. Of the original 39 young pianists who began thundering out their stuff last week in the opening roulades of the Scottish International Piano Competition, 27 can now pack up their keyboards. The panel of judges, under the chairmanship of the esteemed concert pianist, John Lill, has picked 12 to go forward to the semi-finals in the RSAMD, where each will play a 55-minute recital to secure one of four places in next Sunday's final. The magnificent dozen, in the order in which they will play, are as follows:
Tomorrow: Seiko Tsukamoto (Japan), Dror Biran (Israel), Chenyin Li (China), Marina Nadiradze (Georgia), Viv McLean (UK), Rostislav Krimer (Belarus).
Thursday: Albert Mamriev (Israel), Ayako Kimura (Japan), Juho Pohjonen (Finland), Alexandre Pirojenko (Russia), Colleen Lee (Hong Kong), Sergei Salov (Ukraine).
The 12 will play in two sessions each day, beginning at 1.15 and 6.45pm. At the finals next Sunday, four of them will each play a piano concerto with the RSNO and Alexander Lazarev in a marathon concert beginning at 6.45pm at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall.
First prize will be (pounds) 10,000 plus a (pounds) 35,000 Bluethner grand piano. Second prize is (pounds) 5000, while the third and fourth prizes are (pounds) 2500 and (pounds) 1500. One entrant will also win a year's scholarship to the RSAMD.
Awards with clout
ONCE again the annual Gramophone Awards, the music business's most prestigious classical prizes, loom. The final results will be announced in London on October 19, where the ceremony at the Barbican will be hosted by Simon Callow. The shortlists for each category to find the finest recordings of the past 12 months include two Scottish outfits, both appearing in the concerto section.
The BBC SSO is there, with conductor Martyn Brabbins, for its recording on the Hyperion label of Stanford's Violin Concerto, where the soloist is Anthony Marwood. This is volume two in the label's Romantic Violin Concerto series, a sibling to its phenomenally successful Romantic Piano Concerto series, to which the SSO contributed massively.
The RSNO, also with out-of-the-way concertos, is nominated for its recording on the Naxos label of Alan Rawsthorne's Oboe Concerto, featuring RSNO principal Stephane Rancourt, and the same composer's Cello Concerto, with Alexander Baillie as soloist. The nominations themselves, in the Gramophone Awards, are worth considerable clout in terms of prestige.
Billboard is edited by Keith Bruce. Contact: Herald Arts, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow G2 3PR
0141 302 7019.
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