Italian’s ‘Emperor’ rules at climax of piano competition

Three weeks ago 68 of the world’s finest young pianists arrived in Leeds for the International Piano Competition, dreaming of being one of the six chosen to take part in the concerto final round in the Town Hall and to be televised by the BBC.

More than £60,000 in prize money was on offer and there was a long list of orchestras and concert organisations who had already signed up to present the winners with engagements here and abroad.

This year the 11 distinguished jury members chose the 24-year-old Italian, Federico Colli, as the winner, an interesting selection probably more based on his thunderous performance of Mussorgsky’s showpiece, Pictures at an Exhibition, in the semi-finals than for his uncomplicated view of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto.

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That competitions are always somewhat of a lottery, came with the choice of the members of the Halle Orchestra and their conductor, Sir Mark Elder, who turned that decision upside down in naming their winner as the American, Andrew Tyson, whom the jury rated no higher than fifth.

His sparkling Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto took ‘The Terence Judd – Halle Orchestra Prize’, the winner’s cheque accompanied by a minimum of three concerts with the orchestra, recitals in Manchester and the potential of a recording on the Halle’s own CD label.

Members of the audience revealed their choice would have gone to the quite remarkable Chinese virtuoso, Jiayan Sun.

Whether any of the other competitors would have wanted to exposed themselves to the scrutiny posed by Prokofiev’s fiendishly difficult Second Piano Concerto is doubtful, but he had swept the problems away in a presentation of unfailing accuracy.

Looking back it is the third placed finalists who have often become the one who have created the big and lasting career, and Sun should be no exception.

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