Seong-Jin Cho won the Chopin Competition

On 20 October, the final-round auditions of the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition were completed. Jury led by Prof. Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń, awarded prizes and honorable mentions. The winner of the competition is Seong-Jin Cho from Corea.

The auditions for the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition began on 3 October. 78 pianists from 20 countries took part in them. Appearing in the finals were 10 pianists from 8 countries, who performed one of Fryderyk Chopin’s piano concerti with the Warsaw Philharmonic under the direction of Jacek Kaspszyk. Nine of the participants selected the Concerto in E minor op. 11; and only one, Charles Richard-Hamelin from Canada, the Concerto in F minor op. 21. The final verdict we found out during the night of 20/21 October.

MAIN PRIZES
1st prize (30 000 €) and gold medal - Seong-Jin Cho
2nd prize (25 000 €) and silver medal - Charles Richard-Hamelin
3rd prize (20 000 €) and bronze medal - Kate Liu
4th prize (15 000 €) - Eric Lu
5th prize (10 000 €) - Yike (Tony) Yang
6th prize (7 000 €) - Dmitry Shishkin

HONORABLE MENTIONS (4000 €)
Aljoša Jurinić
Aimi Kobayashi
Szymon Nehring
Georgijs Osokins

Seong-Jin Cho is 21 years old and he is a student of Michel Beroff at the Paris Conservatoire. He has won the International Fryderyk Chopin Competition for Young Pianists (2008) and a piano competition in Hamamatsu, Japan (2009), as well as Third Prize in the Pyotr Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia (2011) and the Arthur Rubinstein in Tel Aviv (2014). He has performed in concert with the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra (cond. Valery Gergiev), the French Radio, Czech, Seoul (all with Myung-Whun Chung), Munich (cond. Lorin Maazel) and Ural (cond. Dmitry Liss) philharmonic orchestras, Berlin Radio Orchestra (cond. Marek Janowski), Russian National Orchestra (cond. Mikhail Pletnev) and Basel Symphony Orchestra (cond. Pletnev). He has toured Japan, Germany, France, Russia, Poland, Israel, China and the US. He has appeared at the Tokyo Opera, in Osaka, at the Moscow Conservatory and at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, including with recitals.