Private: Malta International Piano Competition

In July 2022, the European Foundation for Support of Culture will be organising the Malta International Piano Competition which shall be held in the Mediterranean island of Malta as part of the Malta International Music Festival.

 

Taking place over two rounds, this competition shall be open to applicants of any nationality provided that they are no older than 35 years by the time of the Opening Ceremony on the 11th of July. The repertoire for the first round, which should last for a duration of 25 minutes, may be chosen freely by the candidates, but has to include one Prelude & Fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier (Book I or II) by J.S. Bach; one virtuoso Etude by F. Chopin, F. Liszt, S. Rachmaninoff, A. Scriabin, or C. Debussy, and one composition composed after 1900.

 

The final round meanwhile will last for 40 minutes, and must include Mikhail Pletnev’s arrangement of Alexey Shor’s Piano Sonata; a complete sonata by J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart or L. van Beethoven, and one composition (excluding Etudes) by F. Chopin, F. Liszt, J. Brahms, R. Schumann, F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, C. Franck, or M. Mussorgsky.

 

Over the course of both rounds, contestants will be judged by a specially-selected jury made up of some of the most distinguished artists, musicians, and music pedagogues active today.

 

In addition to its significance and prestige in its own right, the 2022 edition of the Malta International Piano Competition also forms part of a larger initiative called ’14 Ways to Dubai’, which shall see 14 preliminary piano competitions being held in 14 different cities around the world, including Austria, the USA, France, Malta, Italy, Armenia, Germany, Belgium, Israel, Russia, South Korea, China, Japan and Switzerland, with seven held in 2022 and a further seven in 2023. The five top-ranked contestants of each will then be invited to compete in the Classic Piano International Competition 2024 which shall be held in Dubai, UAE, as part of the InClassica International Music Festival, with a total prize fund of €250,000 awaiting the most accomplished of them.