One of the most important roles of The European Foundation for Support of Culture is to promote young musicians. The Foundation established a series of eleven competitions for young pianists across the entire Eurasian continent. The winners of these competitions in Yerevan (Armenia), Granada (Spain), Brescia (Italy), Astana (Kazakhstan), Berlin (Germany), Vienne (Austria), Valletta (Malta), Moscow (Russia), Shanghai (China), Tokyo (Japan) and Cologne (Germany), are invited to participate at the final lap of this unprecedented marathon competition – the final stage of the Malta International Piano Competition, which will take place from April 16 to April 29 as a part of the Malta International Music Festival. As a result of this rigorous selection, 5 winners of each competition within the series will be admitted to the final stage together with 15 additional participants who were selected through a rigorous video screening by an impressive panel of judges.
All in all, 728 young talents from 74 countries took part in the series of eleven competitions! Seventy musicians will participate in final stage – the Malta International Piano Competition 2018 – to be held in Valletta, where the first prize winner will be awarded of 100,000 Euro. The total prize fund of the Malta International Piano Competition is 210,000 euros – the largest ever prize fund among all piano competitions in the world!
The panel of judges of the competition will be composed of prominent figures in the world of music needing no introduction: famous conductor Konstantin Orbelian, artistic director of the Armenian Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet named after Spendiarov; Gerrit Glaner, head of the Concert and Artistic Department at Steinway & Sons; Vladimir Ovchinnikov, professor at the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatoire; Georg Friedrich Schenck, professor at the Robert Schumann College in Dusseldorf; Ilja Scheps, professor at the Cologne Conservatoire; Dmitry Alekseev, Professor at the Royal College of Music in London; Dmitry Bahskirov, professor at the Queen Sofia College of Music in Madrid; R. Douglas Sheldon, executive vice-president and managing director at Columbia Artists Management Inc.; Alexander Sokolov, rector of the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatoire; Zhe Tang, professor at the Shanghai Conservatoire; Golda Vainberg Tatz, professor at the Juilliard School and the University of Columbia; Arie Vardi, professor at the Tel-Aviv University and the University of Hannover.
Repertoir: http://www.maltafest.eu/mipc2018-repertoir.html
Jury members: http://www.maltafest.eu/jury-members.html
Prizes: http://www.maltafest.eu/mipc2018-prizes.html