Scottish International Piano Competition

Jonathan Fournel - Winner of the
2014  Scottish International
Piano Competition

This weekend is the London Piano Festival (7-9 October 2016 at Kings Place), co-artistic directors  Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen. Both pianists are prize winners of the Scottish International Piano Competition (Charles took 2nd prize in 1995 and Katya took equal 2nd prize in 1998), so it seems rather apt to announce that the next Scottish International Piano Competition will take place from 1 to 10 September 2017 in Glasgow.

The competition runs every three years; the previous competition was in 2014 and was won by the young French pianist Jonathan Fournel (who was only 21 at the time of the competition). 

Frederic Lamond

The competition was founded in 1986 and the 2017 edition will be the 11th festival. Thirty competitors, aged 18-30, will take part before an international jury of musicians and pianists chaired by Professor Aaron Shorr, Head of Keyboard and Collaborative Piano at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. The competitors perform a series of recital programmes culminating in a concerto final at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, where the three finalists will be accompanied by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

The semi-finalists will perform a newly commissioned work by Gordon McPherson, Head of Composition at the conservatoire. Each round of the Competition will be played on a different piano: a Bosendorfer, a Fazioli and a Steinway, which is intended to create a variety of experience for the competitors and the audience.

The competition was founded in memory of the great Scottish pianist Frederic Lamond (1868-1948), who was one of Liszt's last pupils and who, after a career based in Germany returned to Scotland to teach at the Scottish National Academy (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). You can hear Lamond talking about his lessons with Liszt on YouTube.