Japanese Placed 2nd, 4th In Chopin Competition


Japanese placed 2nd, 4th in Chopin competition

Japanese pianists have been awarded the second and fourth prizes in the 18th Chopin international piano competition, one of the world's most prestigious classical music contests.

The competition is held every five years in the Polish capital, Warsaw. The auditions of the 12 finalists ended on Wednesday. The jury announced on Thursday that the first prize had been awarded to Canada's Bruce Liu. Japan's Sorita Kyohei took the second prize, and Kobayashi Aimi came fourth.

Twenty-seven-year-old Sorita is from Tokyo. He is studying at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. He has set up an orchestra of young musicians, and launched a paid online streaming service when many concerts were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Kobayashi, aged 26, is from Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan. She started learning the piano when she was three years old, and performed with an orchestra at the age of seven. She reached the final of the 17th Chopin competition in 2015.

The International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition is regarded as one of the world's three main classical music contests along with the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium and the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia.

The winners of the first prize in previous competitions include Martha Argerich and Stanislav Bunin. Japan's Uchida Mitsuko won second place in 1970.