Next Month's List Concours Winner to Hold Gala Concert at Seoul Arts Center in May

[Asia Economy Reporter Byunghee Park] The gala concert featuring the 1st and 2nd prize winners of the 12th Franz Liszt International Piano Competition will be held on May 17 at 2 PM at the IBK Chamber Hall in the Seoul Arts Center.

Concert planning company Stomp Music announced this news and stated on the 19th that the concert program will be announced shortly after the 1st and 2nd prize winners are decided at the end of next month.

The Franz Liszt International Piano Competition has been held every three years in Utrecht, the Netherlands, since 1986, the 100th anniversary of Liszt's death. Interest in the Liszt Competition increased domestically when South Korea's Hong Minsu won 2nd place in the 2017 competition.

This year, among the 14 semifinalists, Korean pianists Park Yeonmin and Kim Mingyu are included, drawing attention.

The finals of the 12th Franz Liszt International Piano Competition will be held from the 17th to the 28th of next month in Utrecht, the Netherlands. On the 22nd, the final three contestants will be selected, with the solo final on the 25th and the final winner decided through an orchestral collaboration on the 28th.

The 1st and 2nd prize winners, to be decided next month, will visit Korea on May 17 to hold a gala concert titled "2020 Liszt International Piano Competition Winners in Seoul."

This year is a busy year for major international piano competitions. The Chopin Competition, the world's most prestigious piano competition held every five years, will take place in Warsaw, Poland, in October. Prior to that, the Queen Elisabeth International Competition will be held in Brussels, Belgium, in May. Unlike the Chopin Competition, which only features piano, the Queen Elisabeth Competition rotates annually among four categories: violin, piano, cello, and vocal. Coincidentally, this year is the piano category year. The Seoul International Music Competition, held in March, will also feature the piano category this year. The Seoul International Music Competition rotates annually among piano, violin, and vocal categories.

Liszt was a pianist who captivated the public with classical music during the Romantic era, enjoying wealth and fame. Liszt's solo recitals, which showcased his outstanding piano skills, overwhelming showmanship, and creative musical spirit, were always packed with enthusiastic fans known as "Lisztomania."

The "Franz Liszt International Piano Competition," held in honor of Liszt, is a piano-only competition like the Chopin Competition, notorious for its difficulty due to the high level of technique required, featuring only Liszt's compositions as required pieces.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.