Exclusive: Busoni International Piano Competition: Grand Final 2017
The winner of the 61st Busoni International Piano Competition is Ivan Krpan, Jaeyeon Won follows with the second prize and Anna Geniushene with the third prize. Here are the 3 candidates of the Grand Final. Each one of them presented one concerto for piano and orchestra.
Read more…After the Grand Finale with the Haydn Orchestra conducted by Arvo Volmer, the jury, chaired by Mari Kodama, announced the winner of the 61st International Busoni Piano Competition at midnight on Friday, September 1st 2017. From the original 24 candidates, three contestants made it through the first three rounds to the Finale. For the final competition round with orchestra, all three finalists chose piano concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven. The Grand Finale commenced with Anna Geniushene and the Piano Concerto No. 5 Opus 73, followed by Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto interpreted by Jaeyeon Won. After the interval, Ivan Krpan closed the programme with a second performance of Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto.
Anna Geniushene
Born on the 1st January 1991 in Moscow, Anna Geniushene has commenced her Master of Arts degree at the Royal Academy of Music, studying under supervision of Professor Emeritus Christopher Elton. As the Royal Academy of Music scholar, Anna is generously supported by the ABRSM Scholarship as well as worldwide known organisation as English-Speaking Union. Her upcoming projects includes participation in the Finals of Feruccio Busoni Piano Competition (Bolzano, Italy, August, 2017), the one of the most prestigious competitions of present time, and Glasgow Piano Competition in Scotland (September, 2017). At the age of five, she began her piano studies at Shostakovich School of Music, where she was taught by Eleonora Tagusheva; then continued her education at Chopin College of Music, having studied there for 4 years with Irina Gabrielova. Anna has recently graduated from Moscow State Conservatory, where she made her Specialist degree under tuition of Professor Elena Kuznetsova.
Since the age of eight, Anna has been actively involved in the cultural life of Moscow: her early musical achievements included the Second Prize in the Schostakovich Music Competition (1998), as well as Grand-Prix in the Blütner International Competition (Russia, Kaliningrad, 2006). During the studying time, Anna became a prizewinner of many competitions, such as Schedrin Music Competition (1st Prize, Moscow, 2008), 14th Music Competition “Musika be sienu” (1st Prize, Lithuania, 2009), Romantic Music Festival for Young Musicians, (1st , Moscow, 2010), International Music Competition «Citta di Padova» (2nd , Italy, 2012) and Yudina International Music Competition (1st , Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 2015). In May 2017 she has been awarded the Second prize at Mauro Monopoli Competition (Barletta, Italy) as well as the First Prize and Audience Prize at Sheepdrove Piano Competition (Newbury, UK). Anna is delighted to have featured several times in encyclopedia “A Talented Youth- the Future of Russia” (2010). She is devoted ambassador of Russian culture throughout the world: she represented the Moscow Conservatory at the Kyoto International Music Festival in Japan, 2014; then in the autumn of 2015, Anna became a soloist of Saint-Petersburg House of Music, having received an invitation to play several concerts throughout Russia. She regularly takes part in masterclasses and collaborates with such renowed artists as Ferenc Rados, Rita Wagner, Klaus Hellwig, Kirill Gerstein, Imogen Cooper, Pavel Nersessian, Aleksandr Rabinovitch, Aleksander Sandler , Haenk Gouttard, Steven Osborne, Wolfgang Redik. Anna has an extensive repertoire from Baroque to the present day; except solo, she is a keen to play chamber music with other musicians and enjoys creative collaboration with a variety of instrumentalists.
Jaeyeon Won
Born in Seoul in 1988, Jaeyeon Won began studying with Choong Mo Kang in 2002 at the preparatory school of the Korea National University of Arts. He was the recipient of a full scholarship to the Sunhwa Art middle and high school. After finishing high school in 2006, Jaeyeon went to the Korea National University of Arts to study music with Choong-mo Kang, then to the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hochschule for Musik und Theater in Leipzig with Gerald Fauth. From 2013 to 2015 he studied at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg under Pavel Gililov, and since 2015 Jaeyeon has been studying under Claudio Martinez Mehner in the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln As a one of the leading Korean pianists of his generation, Jeayeon Won has received awards at the most prestigious piano competition in Korea and at international competitions such as the Long-Thibaud-Crespin competition, the Busoni piano competition, the Concours Geneve, and the Karlrobert-Kreiten-Wettbewerb. He has been invited to play at the Euromusic Festival in Leipzig, the Wien Konservatorium Music Festival, and the Australian Institute of Music Festival in Sydney. Jaeyeon has also given concerts in Korea, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Switzerland, including the Kumho Young Artist Concerts, the Young Musicians Festival, Association Animato in Paris, Sociedad Filarmonica Ferrolana, the Sociedad Filarmónica de A Coruña, and the Festival de Música Cidade de Lugo. He has performed with orchestras such as the Westsächsischen SymphonieOrchester, Bari Province Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig musikhochschule orchester. Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
Ivan Krpan
Ivan Krpan was born in Zagreb in 1997. He began studying the piano at the age of 6 at the Blagoje Bersa Music School in Zagreb, under the tutelage of Renata Strojin Richter. From 2013, he has been studying piano with Ruben Dalibaltayan at the Music Academy in Zagreb. He has won several first prizes in national and international piano competitions: first prize in the EPTA International Piano Competition in Bruxelles in 2014, 1st prize in the International Piano Competition Young Virtuosi in Zagreb in 2014, 2nd prize in the International Danube Piano Competition in Ulm (Germany) in 2014 and 1st prize in the International Piano Competition in Enschede (The Netherlands). In 2015 he won 4th prize in the 1st International Zhuhai Mozart Competition in Zhuhai (China). Recently he won the annual Ivo Vuljević prize awarded by the Jeunesses Musicales Croatia for the best young musician in Croatia in 2015. He has participated in masterclasses of Dalibor Cikojević, Siavush Gadjiev, Ruben Dalibaltayan, Djordje Stanetti, Kemal Gekić, Pavel Gililov and Klaus Kaufmann. He won a special prize from Dean of Zagreb Music Academy in 2014.