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The winner of the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, one of the UK’s most prestigious international music prizes has been announced in Hastings, UK.

Fumiya Koido 003
Fumiya Koido Winner of the 2019 Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition

First prize winner was Fumiya Koida from Japan who gave a stunning performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and won a cash prize of £15,000 plus future concerto performance engagements with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and additional performance opportunities in both the UK and the USA.

Second Prize Winner was awarded to Maxim Kinasov from Russia, who gave an impressive performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor Op.23 and received a cash prize of £7,000. Kinasov also received the special ‘Orchestra Prize’ voted for by players of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and in addition will receive future performance engagements.

Now revered as one of the UK’s premier classical competitions, the competition took place in the creative hub of Hastings, culminating in a live 2 day sell-out final at The White Rock Theatre with 6 finalists all playing a full concerto with the RPO, one of The world’s most revered orches-tras.

The competition becomes a biennial event from 2019 and continues its relationship with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the world’s leading orchestras,
The 2019 competition enjoyed national and international reach with over 176 entries from 26 countries, with live auditions having taken place in Japan, China, USA, Italy and in the UK. 49 contestants were invited to compete during the competition stages in Hastings, with winning performers being selected to compete in the semi-final and the live finals.

Addtional Prize Winners are as follows:

Third Prize – Eric Guo – Canada
Fourth Prize – Yunanfan Yang – UK
Fifth Prize – Sylvia Yang – New Zealand
Sixth Prize – Alexander Yau – Australia

Special Prize of £1,000 Awarded to a British Contestant reaching the Final –
Yuanfan Yang

Congratulations to all the prize winners

 

(source: A-Star PR)

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For those of us who engage in music, as performers and teachers, the classical canon offers an endless source of excitement, thrilling stories and fantasies, portrayed in myriad colours, moods and styles. The desire to play this music and revel in its wonders is very potent and is what motivates us to practise, play, perform, and teach. Sharing the music with others is a special joy all of its own.

Alongside this, the musician’s daily life can be tough, restrictive and lonely: the routine of practising, trying to make a living in an uncertain, highly competitive profession, seeking out performance opportunities, travelling, teaching, and the quotidian admin of managing a career. When the creative pursuit of music feels more like a task than a passion, it can lead to a loss of joy.

There are added pressures too: the rigours of the musician’s training can affect one’s attitude to the music. It stops being a source of excitement and exploration and instead becomes a sequence of technical exercises to be practised with clinical precision to the point of perfection.  The need always to be at the top of one’s game, the knowledge that, as a performer, one is only as good as one’s last performance, the precarious nature of the profession – all these can impact on one’s attitude to the music.

How do we preserve the joy when so many pressures can conspire to remove it from our music making?

As a teacher, I think it should start in the earliest lessons. Too often children are encouraged not to make a mistake, to aim for perfection – an unrealistic artificial construct – and in doing so become fixated on avoiding errors rather than revelling in the pleasure of the music, relishing and cherishing the sounds they are making.

…too much emphasis is placed on how they [music students] perform, and too little on what they experience.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of FLOW

 

Embrace the experience

As we mature and develop as musicians, whether or not we choose the path of formal training in conservatoire, our focus should remain on “the experience”. Of course we must practise deeply and intelligently, with due care and attention, but not to the exclusion of everything else. Life experience, from the mundane to the extraordinary, all feeds the artistic temperament and brings vitality and imagination to our music making.

Make the music for you and remain curious

Intrinsic motivation – whereby one undertakes a task or activity for its own sake rather than in the hope of gaining some sort of external reward or praise – leads to better focus and concentration, and far more fulfilling outcomes. So make the music for you – and don’t continually seek praise or endorsement from others; nor compare yourself to others.

Thirst for knowledge is a form of intrinsic motivation and this thirst can be fulfilled by learning new music and enjoying the process of learning. Personal fulfilment can be derived from knowing one is getting better, while the physical and mental satisfaction of actually playing music is a pleasure in itself and can lead to a state of flow, where one enjoys the activity for its own sake.

Regular reminders of why we have chosen to devote ourselves to music, which focus on the intrinsic motivations, rather than career advancement or external endorsement, and recalling our love for and pleasure in the art form, are very important too.

Give yourself permission for downtime

Taking regular breaks from practising and the other minutiae of managing one’s career allows time to refocus and reset. Regular exercise, plenty of sleep, having someone help with the mundane tasks, and getting away from it all by doing something else – reading a book, visiting an exhibition or simply chilling with a TV programme.

Acceptance

Know and accept that feelings of frustration and disgruntlement with one’s working life as normal and common to everyone.

 

And some helpful advice from musicians themselves:

Finding a few minutes amongst the (often huge) stresses of deadlines to engage in ‘play’/procrastination…and lots of listening to all kinds of music.

Thomas Hewitt Jones, composer

 

Reflect regularly on the transience of stress and anxiety and the permanence of art. Treat it as your friend, not your enemy. Even if things get much worse and they always can, know that art will always be with you and will continue long after you’re gone. A thirst for life and creation when willed into being tends to overwhelm the desire for death (of one form or another).

Luke Jones, pianist

 

For me, playing is the release. I mostly compose via improvisations, so as my mind wanders and deals with daily stress, my music is moving around under my fingers looking for a way to ground myself.

Simon Reich, pianist and composer

 

at times when my work is not bringing new repertoire to me, I find there is no cure for fatigue that is better than making a new thing

Sally Whitwell, pianist and composer

 

For me the joy is in the music. I love music.

Joseph Fleetwood, pianist

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wm1_700x0__LL375_CovFor the musician looking to further their studies after Grade 8, Performance Diplomas offer a pathway to fully accredited professional qualifications, recognised by other musicians and music professionals around the world. A diploma, even at the lowest Associate level, is considerably more involved than Grade 8, requiring a high degree of attainment, combined with a professional attitude to preparation and practising, communication, musicality, presentation and stagecraft. As such, a diploma offers a significant musical, intellectual and personal challenge, and provides a useful framework for the honing and maturing of performance and teaching skills.

London College of Music (LCM) has recently updated and refreshed its music performance diplomas, and the Piano Diplomas have a revised repertoire list, together with the release of a second In Concert volume of music, edited by Joanna Macgregor, Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and a concert pianist acclaimed for her highly original programming.

The new LCM piano diplomas syllabus now offers three types of performance diploma at DipLCM, ALCM, and LLCM levels as follows (mark weightings shown in brackets):

Performance: Performance (70%), Discussion [formerly called Viva Voce] (15%), Sight Reading (15%)

Recital: Performance (80%), Discussion or Sight Reading (20%)

Concert: Performance (100%)

For all diplomas, candidates must produce a written programme.

At Fellowship level (FLCM), there is a single Performance Diploma for which candidates must offer a 50-60 minute recital with programme notes of 3000-3500 words. Marks are not awarded; the performance is either Approved or Not Approved.

By offering three types of performance diploma, LCM gives candidates the opportunity to select the diploma format that is right for them. There is a lot of snobbery surrounding performance diplomas (just as there is a lot of snobbery concerning the different exam boards), but I believe candidates benefit from a choice of format and should select a diploma which will enable them to perform to the very best of their abilities. A quick glance at the diploma repertoire lists for each exam board reveals music of similar difficulty, with many pieces common to all boards.

For those who simply want to perform a recital programme, the Concert Diploma, introduced in 2017, is the route to take. While some may argue that the removal of sight-reading and other tests from the Concert diploma makes this an “easier” option, I would counter with the assertion that being judged wholly on one’s performance is a very good test of one’s musicianship and professional performance skills. This gives candidates the chance to focus entirely on the music and to be really imaginative in creating a proper concert programme (this was my reason for opting to take the Trinity College London diplomas rather than the ABRSM’s).

While the LCM diploma repertoire lists are not as extensive as Trinity’s nor the ABRSM’s, what the lists lack in quantity they more than make up for in variety, with a good selection of music by women and contemporary composers, including works by Florence Price, Emily Doolittle, Judith Weir, Thomas Ades and Tan Dun, together with key works from the core canon of piano music. Candidates also have the option to include own-choice repertoire, provided it is of a technical standard consistent with that of the appropriate diploma level. There is no need for own-choice repertoire to be approved in advance. Thus candidates can create a recital programme which plays to their strengths and musical affinities, which is interesting, well-balanced and varied. These are very much diplomas for the modern musician.

With the introduction of the Concert Diploma in 2017, LCM released the In Concert handbook, an anthology of pieces from Baroque to present day selected by Joanna Macgregor. A second In Concert volume has just been released for the Associate and Licentiate level diplomas, alongside the updated diploma syllabus, from which candidates must select at least one piece for their diploma programme. As with the previous volume, the pieces are accompanied by useful introductory notes, also by Joanna Macgregor, which set the works in context and offer guidance on technical and artistic issues. The selection of music is varied and imaginative, and as in the main repertoire lists, women and contemporary composers are well-represented, with the opportunity to enrich one’s repertoire beyond the core canon. The book is attractively-produced with clear music engraving on good quality paper.

I’ve been consistently impressed with LCM’s approach to graded music exams and diplomas since I was involved in the selection process for the current piano syllabus. This exam board is very consciously offering candidates and teachers something distinctive from the old-fashioned graded music exam, with an imaginative choice of repertoire and exam formats.

Highly recommended

Note: candidates should consuld the current syllabus and read the regulations carefully to ensure they are conversant with and meet all the necessary criteria for entry

LCM Music Diplomas Syllabus from 2019

LCM Piano Diplomas repertoire list from 2019

Further reading

Why take a performance diploma?

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Guest post by Michael Johnson

Let’s face it. Except for the lucky few who have the gift, young students struggling to coax music out of a piano are in for a world of pain. Most of them just suffer in silence, and so do their families in the next room, as sharps become flats, allegro becomes lento, everything is hammered to death, and Mozart rolls over in his grave.

But in the past few years, a strange ritual has taken root in our so-called civilization – a safety valve for those who crack under the strain of music’s harsh discipline. It is called “piano destruction” and it is more than a diversion for vandals.

This is different from performance art, in which pianos have been abused for decades by artists seeking to shock. A Swedish pianist, the late Karl-Erik Welin, took a chainsaw to his piano and composed a piece he calls “Esservecchia” calling for strong fist blows to the keyboard and strings.

The occasional comic take on piano destruction survives on film, such as Harpo Marx and his version of “Wreckmaninov”.

But now young piano students sometimes go mad, jumping on the keys, smashing the soundboard, torching the instrument, raking the strings with garden tools – and capturing it all on video

Is this really porn? At least it is an act offensive to public morality, so I call it “pure piano porn”.

Fine instruments produced by piano craftsmen are transformed into bonfires, torn to pieces by heavy construction equipment, exploded with TNT, pushed off cliffs and tipped over the edge of tall buildings.

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Raphael Montanez Ortiz attacks a grand piano with an axe as part of a piece of performance art

Admittedly some ageing pianos are so worn out that they cannot be tuned, and there comes a time to drag them to the knackers yard like an old horse. What makes the practice obscene is the glee with which the demolishers attack the doomed instrument.

A search of the web reveals dozens of amateur piano-bashers at work under the heading “piano destruction”. The best compilation I have found is a link called “25 ways to kill a piano”, accessible here.

Not everyone can find enjoyment from these wanton acts of devastation. Music lovers cringe at the sight of them and scratch their heads. Piano tuners and piano builders weep.

And yet, men and women, boys and girls, will rush at a piano with an axe or hammer or iron bar if motivated by their desperation. The more ambitious of them go to the woods and plant explosives inside. Much merriment – diabolical laughter, actually — is associated with these events.

Occasionally a truly accomplished player takes out his frustration on the instrument. Recently in France, François-René Duchâble, during a pause in his career, recalled his personal act of vengeance. He says he liberated himself from an overly demanding career by dropping the wooden case of his grand piano from a helicopter into Lake Mercantour, in the French Alps, and never saw it again.

He branded the piano “an arrogant instrument which excludes all those that don’t know about music.”

“People thought this was a desperate move,” he recalled. “In fact it was a liberation. An act of purification.” And he told a reporter, “I have had enough of sacrificing my life for one percent of the population. I have had enough of participating in a musical system, which, in France at least, functions badly and limits classical music to an elite.”

Thus he brought to a close three decades as a concert pianist and recording star, “a life I detested”, he said. At a stroke, the helicopter stunt had put an end to everything that was weighing him down – “the travel, the rehearsals, the recording sessions in which one is a mere student of the producer in the studio.” He hated taking direction from record producers and he likened his road trips to traveling around in a hearse.

Duchâble’s works are still on the market. His performances of all the standard repertoire of Liszt, Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Grieg, are easy to find. He feels his entire life was ruined by his career. “I have a few good memories, a few successes, but not much,” he recalled. “I spent 30 years regretting I had this talent which prevented me from having a life,” he recalled. Finally, he snapped.

Until his recent retirement, he was saying he felt “reborn”, performing for children or the sick, or pedaling around seaside resorts with a keyboard mounted on a specially built tricycle, attracting crowds of old and young with his mobile arpeggios and snatches of Chopin.

The more common piano-bashers seem to be amateurs who arrive on the dreaded “plateau” of learning during which nothing seems to move forward despite intense practicing. Clips of piano destruction on YouTube are enlivened with viewer comments, such as: “Wow he must have had a terrible teacher.”

Yes, piano pedagogues have much to answer for.

Michael Johnson is a music critic with particular interest in piano. He worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his writing career. He is the author of five books and divides his time between Boston and Bordeaux. He is a regular contributor to The Cross-Eyed Pianist

 

Another version of this story appeared on http://www.factsandarts.com