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Each time they get us waiting late into the night I wonder if the jury members don't fancy sleeping... 🤔😉

If it's this late, I have a feeling that it's gonna be a weird result/no first prize awarded/no special prizes.

They're waiting for Brussels to confirm that the winner is politically acceptable...

There is a possibility that they dont attribute all the prizes, in particular for best concerto. In any case i would guess there is a close tie between a number of people.

Per jury rules, a juror could abstain from voting in any rounds in any of the Special Awards and interestingly, the restriction on juror-student connection does not apply to Special Awards.

53k people watching and the chat is going 1,000 MPH, haha.

So there it is. Bruce won.

And Canadian Bruce Liu is the winner (and Fazioli). Sorita 2nd, Gadjiev third (my bad, he tied for 2nd!) Garcia is third.

I – Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu
II ex aequo – Alexander Gadjiev
II ex aequo – Kyohei Sorita
III – Martin Garcia Garcia
IV ex aequo – Aimi Kobayashi
IV ex aequo – Jakub Kuszlik
V – Leonora Armellini
VI – J J Jun Li Bui

Sonata prize: Alexander Gadjiev
Concerto prize: Martin Garcia Garcia
Mazurka prize: Jakub Kuszlik


Not sure if I missed one for a Polonaise or it wasn't awarded.

Wow, all of the younger players got shut out. Not sure how I feel about a student of a jury member winning the first prize.

Fair enough.

Except IMO, Garcia should not have advanced even to Stage III. But here we are.

It will be interesting when they do release the jury's score-sheets. We should see an "S" from Dang Thai Son for JJ and Bruce, the same way he did for Kate, Eric, and Tony in 2015 (link). It'd be interesting to see the spread of the scores for Bruce from all jury members. (In '15 Cho received mostly 9s, two 10s, one 8, one 6, and a "1".)

I only listened to this competition in bits and pieces, but I managed to catch Bruce Liu's concerto performance and immediately it felt exceptionally good. Cannot say if Liu is "the best" for I missed most of this competition, but Liu is definitely very, very good. Yes, I noticed the Fazioli, and I'm quite okay with it as I have enjoyed playing every Fazioli I have come across.

I wouldnt have put Garcia and Kuszlik, and Armellini deserved a better place. For Liu, though technically excellent, I feel musically/artistically there were better candidates. His concerto was his best performance. This year the level is more homogeneous but there isnt any star emerging yet.

Curious to see what are the scores in points.

Early days, but I’m sticking my neck out and saying that Bruce Liu is a once-in-a-generation talent. The technique (from my point of view) alone is worth the price of admission. What I heard was beyond belief. Gobsmacked, in fact. The finger-vibrato, however: that I’ve always found completely over-the-top. Still, for my tastes, totally in a class of his own. I don’t think anyone touched him. And I’ll go further and say that I don’t think I’ve heard a “big name” pianist on the current concert circuit with his technical prowess. A modern-day Agerich, but actually a bit cleaner, more precise.

What is finger vibrato? Hadn't heard that expression before, just curious Like playing fast before the let off or something?

When the finger is at the bottom of the key after hitting it, you kind of move it as if you were pushing a violin string playing vibrato. Go watch some of Bruce performances and you will see it.

By the way, Glenn Gould also did it some times. Maybe is Canadian school?

Only time will say, but certainly IMO largely exaggerated. In fact the Chopin Competition prize winners (up to the 6th) is filled with people that were promising and never achieved any top concert carreer (by their own choice or not), or arent even remembered for having recorded a reference version of one Chopin piece, some being in the jury. They may have had a good carreer as teachers but wont leave any legacy. Of course there are also a few that did get to the top. I wish the very best to Liu, he certainy worked very hard like all the others and deserves success.

Yes, in some way, competitions are even anti musical, and anti artistic. I can not imagine how a creative musician with true artistic talent could benefit as an artist by engaging in such stressful and unhealthy activity. Probably they are forced to kill their own creativit in order to fit the competition. And devote a lot of time that, at such young age as they have, could be devoted to other areas of study that would bring them more benefits as artists. The competition tries to honour the memory of Chopin, but if today a new Chopin was born, and went into piano competitions, he would never be able to develop as a composer.

Even if you enjoy watching them playing, there's always that dark side about the whole thing.

For those interested to read. Interesting how perceptions can be different.

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/blogs/article/the-chopin-piano-competition-the-final-round-part-one

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/blogs/article/the-chopin-piano-competition-the-final-continues

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/blogs/article/the-chopin-piano-competition-final-reflections