Philippe Bianconi

Philippe Bianconi – France
1985 cliburn silver medalist

French pianist Philippe Bianconi has been described as an artist whose playing is “always close to the soul of the music, filling the space with poetry and life,” (Washington Post) and who offers “an extraordinary exhibition of musicianship, technical control and good taste” (The London Times). Having appeared as a soloist with the world’s finest orchestras, Mr. Bianconi recently concluded his tenure as director of the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, a post he held between 2013–2017 that cemented his reputation as one of the most distinguished artists of his generation. He continues to teach at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau and joined the faculty of École Normale de Musique de Paris in fall 2018. 

Mr. Bianconi was awarded the silver medal in the Seventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1985 and made his acclaimed recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 1987.  Since then, he has appeared as a soloist with leading orchestras, including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore, Atlanta, Dallas, and Montreal, and performed at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony under James Conlon. He has collaborated with such distinguished conductors as Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Kurt Masur, JoAnn Falletta, Marek Janowski, and Edo de Waart. 

In Europe, Mr. Bianconi appears regularly with many orchestras, including a recent performance with James Conlon and the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris in the sold-out Paris Garnier Opera House, and with the Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Berlin Radio Symphony, Netherlands Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Orchester der Beethovenhalle in Bonn, and Strasbourg Philharmonic. He has concertized a number of times in Australia, performing with the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. 

An active and acclaimed recitalist, he has performed around the world, including at New York’s Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, at Wigmore Hall in London, for the Berlin Philharmonic, and in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Hamburg, Milan, Madrid, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Sydney. His recent recital in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris was a huge success, with Le Figaro acclaiming him “one of the best pianists in France.” In March 2019, as part of the Festival du Printemps des Arts de Monaco, Mr. Bianconi will perform and record Brahms’ first and second piano concertos with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic and conductor Michal Nesterowicz. 

Philippe Bianconi’s recording of Debussy’s Prèludes for the La Dolce Volta label received a prestigious Diapason d’Or de l’année and a nomination for “Recording of the Year” at the Victoires de la Musique Classique. Additionally, he has recorded Debussy piano music and the complete solo works of Ravel, as well as solo albums of Schumann and Schubert, for the Lyrinx label. His other recordings include the Brahms Violin Sonatas with Tedi Papavrami on the Aeon label, works of Shostakovich and Prokofiev with cellist Gary Hoffman on the Le Chant du Monde label, and the three Schubert lieder cycles with Hermann Prey on Denon, a Chopin album with the four Ballades, and a Schumann album featuring Papillons, Carnaval and Davidsbündlertänze. In 2020, Mr. Bianconi released a live album of Brahms’ First and Second Piano Concertos with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic and conductor Michal Nesterowicz, recorded as part of the Festival du Printemps des Arts de Monaco. 

As director of the American Conservatory at the Palais de Fontainebleau from 2013–2017, he joined a celebrated coterie of previous faculty and directors, among them Maurice Ravel, Robert Casadesus, Jean Francaix, Henri Dutilleux, Leonard Bernstein, and Nadia Boulanger, who was director from 1949–1979. Founded in 1921, the American Conservatory has trained an enormous number of legendary musicians, including Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Virgil Thomson, Astor Piazzolla, Phillip Glass, and Quincy Jones. Mr. Bianconi makes his home in Paris when he is not performing. 


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Paul Lewis, Jury Chair

Paul Lewis – IRELAND/UNITED KINGDOM
Jury Chair

Paul Lewis is one of the foremost interpreters of the Central European piano repertoire, his performances and recordings of Beethoven and Schubert receiving universal critical acclaim. He was awarded CBE in 2016 for his services to music, and the sincerity and depth of his musical approach have won him fans around the world.

This global popularity is reflected in the world-class orchestras with whom he works, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, Philharmonia, Bavarian Radio Symphony, NHK Symphony, New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras. His close relationship with Boston Symphony Orchestra led to his selection as the 2020 Koussevitzky Artist at Tanglewood.

With a natural affinity for Beethoven, he took part in the BBC’s three-part documentary Being Beethoven and performed a concerto cycle at Tanglewood during summer 2022. He has performed the cycle all over the world, including with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Melbourne Symphony, Orquestra Simfonica Camera Musicae, São Paulo State Symphony, and Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestras, and was the first pianist to play the complete cycle in a single season at the BBC Proms in 2010. Between 2022 and 2024, Mr. Lewis embarks on a four-program Schubert piano sonata series presented at over 25 venues and festivals around the world.

Besides many award-winning Beethoven and Schubert recordings for harmonia mundi, his discography also demonstrates his characteristic depth of approach in other Classical and Romantic repertoire such as Haydn, Schumann, Mussorgsky, Brahms, and Liszt. In chamber music, he is a regular at Wigmore Hall, having played there more than 100 times. He works closely with tenor Mark Padmore in lied recitals around the world; they have recorded three Schubert song cycles together.

Mr. Lewis is co-artistic director of Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival held in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. He is a passionate advocate for music education, and the festival offers free tickets to local schoolchildren. He also gives masterclasses around the world alongside his concert performances. He himself studied with Joan Havill at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel. In 2021, he became an Irish citizen.

Over the course of his career, awards have included Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist of the Year; two Edison awards; three Gramophone awards; Diapason d’Or de l’Annee; South Bank Show Classical Music Award; honorary degrees from Liverpool, Edge Hill, and Southampton Universities; and appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours. Major concerts appearances have included Royal Festival Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, Konzerthaus, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonie, and Berlin Konzerthaus, as well as Tanglewood, Ravinia, Schubertiade, Edinburgh, Salzburg, and Lucerne Festivals.

paullewispiano.co.uk

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Peter Czornyj

Peter Czornyj – United Kingdom

Peter Czornyj, born in England, studied musicology, piano, and composition at Hull University and musicology at Hamburg University, Germany. Upon graduation, he commenced research for a doctoral dissertation on Telemann and Berlin while performing as a theater musician, vocal coach, and piano accompanist in Hamburg and Berlin. From 1992 to 1998, he was director of Archiv Produktion at Deutsche Grammophon, and then founded the independent label Glissando. In 2001, he was named artistic administrator of The Cleveland Orchestra, working closely with Christoph von Dohnányi, Franz Welser-Möst, and Pierre Boulez, including extensive new music commissioning and presenting a chamber music and piano recital series. In 2006, he was appointed vice president for artistic administration at the St. Louis Symphony, and in August 2008, joined the Sydney Symphony as director of artistic planning, partnering with Vladimir Ashkenazy and David Robertson in concert planning, recordings, new music commissioning, and an international piano recital series. In February 2014, he returned to the United States to be the Dallas Symphony’s vice president of artistic operations, collaborating, until his retirement in August 2021, with Music Director Fabio Luisi.


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Pamela Mia Paul

PAMELA MIA PAUL – UNITED STATES
Jury Chair

Pamela Mia Paul is both a brilliant performer and a deeply dedicated teacher. On stage, she has performed with the world’s great orchestras. She has given concerts throughout the United States, and in Europe, the People’s Republic of China, South Korea, and Turkey both as soloist and as chamber musician. In the studio, or in the setting of a masterclass, she is an internationally sought-after pedagogue whose students hold teaching positions throughout the United States and Asia, and who have participated in and won competitions including the Nina Widemann and Naumburg International Piano Competitions.

Ms. Paul has commissioned and premiered works for the piano; Robert Beaser’s Piano Concerto, which was written for her, had its premiere in the United States with the St. Louis Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin, and in Europe with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic under the baton of American conductor Richard Dufallo. The Beaser Concerto had its New York premiere in 1992 at Carnegie Hall, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the American Composers Orchestra. In 2012, Ms. Paul commissioned a concerto for piano and symphonic winds from Steven Bryant. The concerto was premiered with the UNT Wind Symphony conducted by Eugene Migliaro Corporon and recorded for release on the Klavier label in December 2012.

Ms. Paul has received critical acclaim for her appearances with orchestras in the United States and Europe, where her interpretations of both standard repertoire and 20th-century piano concertos have garnered consistent critical praise. Her European orchestral appearances include the Vienna ORF Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Berlin Stadskapelle, and the Dutch Radio Symphony. U.S. appearances include the New York Philharmonic; Minnesota, American Composers, and Caramoor Festival Orchestras; the Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Houston Symphonies; and the Boston and New York Pops.

In both orchestral performances and recitals, Ms. Paul has appeared in the world’s major concert halls, including New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall in London, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, and the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam. As a chamber musician, she has been an invited guest artist at the Salzburg and Bregenz Festivals in Austria, Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, and at Music Mountain in Connecticut. She has performed with the Cassatt, Penderecki, Borromeo, Chester, Orlando, Leontovich, Miro, DaPonte, and St. Petersburg Quartets.

Summer programs at which Ms. Paul has taught include the Prague International Master Classes, The Institute for Strings, and the Vienna International Piano Academy. She has presented masterclasses in Europe, the People’s Republic of China, Turkey, South Korea, and throughout the United States. In 2017, she served as a member of the screening jury of the Fifteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Ms. Paul received the Doctor of Musical Arts, Master of Music, and Bachelor of Music degrees from The Juilliard School. She is currently Regents Professor of Piano at the University of North Texas and is a Steinway artist.

 

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Philippe Bianconi

Philippe Bianconi – France
1985 cliburn silver medalist

French pianist Philippe Bianconi has been described as an artist whose playing is “always close to the soul of the music, filling the space with poetry and life,” (Washington Post) and who offers “an extraordinary exhibition of musicianship, technical control and good taste” (The London Times). Having appeared as a soloist with the world’s finest orchestras, Mr. Bianconi recently concluded his tenure as director of the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, a post he held between 2013–2017 that cemented his reputation as one of the most distinguished artists of his generation. He will continue to teach at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau and joins the faculty of École Normale de Musique de Paris in fall 2018.

Mr. Bianconi was awarded the silver medal in the Seventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1985 and made his acclaimed recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 1987.  Since then, he has appeared as a soloist with leading orchestras, including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore, Atlanta, Dallas, and Montreal, and performed at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony under James Conlon. He has collaborated with such distinguished conductors as Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Kurt Masur, JoAnn Falletta, Marek Janowski, and Edo de Waart.

In Europe, Mr. Bianconi appears regularly with many orchestras, including a recent performance with James Conlon and the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris in the sold-out Paris Garnier Opera House, and with the Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Berlin Radio Symphony, Netherlands Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Orchester der Beethovenhalle in Bonn, and Strasbourg Philharmonic. He has concertized a number of times in Australia, performing with the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras.

An active and acclaimed recitalist, he has performed around the world, including at New York’s Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, at Wigmore Hall in London, for the Berlin Philharmonic, and in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Hamburg, Milan, Madrid, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Sydney. His recent recital in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris was a huge success, with Le Figaro acclaiming him “one of the best pianists in France.” The much-in-demand artist will perform throughout Europe and North America during the 2018–2019 season. In March 2019, as part of the Festival du Printemps des Arts de Monaco, Mr. Bianconi will perform and record Brahms’ first and second piano concertos with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic and conductor Michal Nesterowicz.

Philippe Bianconi’s recording of Debussy’s Prèludes for the La Dolce Volta label received a prestigious Diapason d’Or de l’année and a nomination for “Recording of the Year” at the Victoires de la Musique Classique. Additionally, he has recorded Debussy piano music and the complete solo works of Ravel, as well as solo albums of Schumann and Schubert, for the Lyrinx label. His other recordings include the Brahms Violin Sonatas with Tedi Papavrami on the Aeon label, works of Shostakovich and Prokofiev with cellist Gary Hoffman on the Le Chant du Monde label, and the three Schubert lieder cycles with Hermann Prey on Denon. Additionally, in 2014, he released a Chopin album with the four Ballades, and in 2016, released a Schumann album featuring Papillons, Carnaval and Davidsbündlertänze, both on La Dolce Volta.

As director of the American Conservatory at the Palais de Fontainebleau from 2013–2017, he joined a celebrated coterie of previous faculty and directors, among them Maurice Ravel, Robert Casadesus, Jean Francaix, Henri Dutilleux, Leonard Bernstein, and Nadia Boulanger, who was director from 1949–1979. Founded in 1921, the American Conservatory has trained an enormous number of legendary musicians, including Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Virgil Thomson, Astor Piazzolla, Phillip Glass, and Quincy Jones. Mr. Bianconi makes his home in Paris when he is not performing around the world.

Philipp Scheucher

Philipp Scheucher

Austria | Age 24

Philipp Scheucher was born in Graz, Austria, and began music studies at age 5. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and is now in the master’s program there under the tutelage of Markus Schirmer. Mr. Scheucher has performed in some of Europe’s most important concert halls, including the Golden Hall at the Vienna Musikverein, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Hercules Hall in Munich, and Konzerthaus Berlin. He also has performed in France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. He won first prizes at the 2015 Aarhus International Piano Competition in Denmark and at the 2014 Cologne International Piano Competition, and second prizes at the 2015 Ferenc Liszt Competition in Italy and the 2016 UNISA International Piano Competition in South Africa. Mr. Scheucher has performed with the Graz Philharmonic, the K&K Philharmonic, and Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestras. His other passions include books, skateboarding, movies and TV, and driving.

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COMPETITION REPERTOIRE

Preliminary Recital
BEETHOVEN Fantasia in G Minor, op. 77
HAMELIN Toccata on “L’homme armé”
AUERBACH Prelude in D Minor, op. 41, no. 24
LISZT Consolation No. 3
LISZT Rhapsodie espagnole

Quarterfinal Recital
MOZART Sonata No. 11 in A Major, K. 331
RAVEL “Oiseaux tristes” from Miroirs
RAVEL “Alborada del gracioso” from Miroirs
STRAVINSKY Trois mouvements de Petrouchka

Semifinal Recital

BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 17 in D Minor, op. 31, no. 2 (“Tempest”)
MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition

Semifinal Concerto
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466

Final Round Piano Quintet
SCHUMANN Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, op. 44

Final Round Concerto
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, op. 23