August 18-19, 2019
Winner
一等賞
Wei-Ting Hsieh
Biography
Taiwanese pianist Wei-Ting Hsieh was born in 1996 and has been learning the piano since the age of four. Wei-Ting studied under Chin Chuan Chang in Taiwan. She studied under Michel Béroff, Laurent Cabasso, Maria Josepha Jude and Jonas Vito at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris. She won second place in the Ettlingen International Competition in Germany in 2014. She won first place at Concours Virtuoses du Coeur in France in 2015. She was a semi-finalist in France’s Concours Long Thibauld Crespin in 2015. She won first place. She released her debut album from KNS Classic Label Recording in 2018 at the 2017 Windsor International Piano Competition. She was selected as one of the 24 competitors at the Leeds Piano Competition 2018. She won the silver medal at the Manhattan International Music Competition in 2019. She has performed at several festivals as the 32eme Festival Chopin, the 15th Steinway Piano Festival in Hamburg, Germany. She has “Piano à portes ouvertes” in Paris, the NTUE International Piano Festival in Taiwan, the festival of L’Académie Ravel, and live French music. She played at Festival du Vexin in France and Venice in Italy. She also has recitals and chamber music concerts in France and Taiwan. She co-starred with the Orchestra Symphonique du Pays Basque this summer. She has also worked on chamber music with many grand musicians such as Maria Berusois, Itamar Golan, Michael Hentz and Francois Sarque.
First prize
Arina Lazgiian
Biography
Concert pianist Arina Lazgiian was born in 1991 in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. In June 2019, she graduated from the Royal College of Music in London with an artist diploma under Professor Vanessa Tarsch. She has already earned her master’s degree from the Royal College of Music in the arena and she is backed by the Future of Russia Scholarship. Since arriving at her Royal College of Music, she has won the RCM Concerto Competition 2017, where she plays the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra and Saint-Saens Concerto No. 2. The arena also won the Hopkinson Gold Medal for Piano in 2017. She was a finalist in the 2017 Jack Samuel Inter-University Piano Competition at Wigmore Hall. In June 2018, Arena Lazzian was announced as the winner of the 2018/19 Benjamin Britten Piano Fellowship. She was awarded by the Royal College of Music. Named after a renowned composer and RCM graduate, this fellowship supports outstanding pianists accepted in the RCM Artist Diploma Course. That same year, the arena was selected for the final stage of the Busoni International Piano Competition in the summer of 2019 in Bolzano, Italy. In December 2018, the arena was invited by the Royal College of Music to perform at Soiredor, a large-scale funding VIP event held at the Rafael Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum. In March 2019, the arena appeared in the French Musique program Générations, where she lives in Paris. In July 2019, she was invited to Mallorca to perform at the international piano festival “Torre de Canyamel”, in which the famous pianist Arcadi Volodos participated. In July of the same year, the arena won third place at the “Flame Concours” held in Paris, France. She recently recorded with Margaret Williams’ dancer Dante Sonata, the musical foundation of the newly choreographed ballet film. Between 2010 and 2015, the arena enrolled in the Moscow Conservatory, where she studied under the renowned pianist Veragol Nosteiewa. Prior to that, she studied under Jelenapriashkevic at the Moscow Gunessin School of Music from 2005 to 2010. In 2005 the arena was awarded an honorary award by the Mayor of St. Petersburg. She performed in the Great Hall of the Philharmonic Society of St. Petersburg, the Academic Capella and Small Hall Glazunov in St. Petersburg, the Sarcolt and Center Spiriture Eculture Lucse in Paris. Her repertoire includes Domenico Skullatti, Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Ravel, Foret, Busoni, Mussorgsky, Lakmaninoff, Methnell, Sukliabin, Deshatnikov. Includes composition.
2nd prize
Alis An
Biography
Alis An is a Canadian concert pianist and has won the Pauline Hartley Award from the Royal College of Music. She recently won the “Absolute First Prize” at the 5th Tadini International Music Competition and the Second Prize at the 2019 Montecatini International Piano Competition. She is third in the Canadian Music Competition. She is a finalist in the 2018 and 2020 Paris International Music Competitions and has performed in concerts in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the Czech Republic. Alis was recently awarded an artist’s diploma at RCM under the guidance of Sofya Gulyak and Nigel Clayton. She is now based in Lugano and she is studying under Vsevolod Dvorkin and William Grant Naboré. She has previously studied under Gordon Fergus Thompson and Dmitri Alexeev and has received generous support from the Alberta Arts Foundation, Anne Burrows Music Foundation, Ranald and Bella Shen Memorial Foundation, and Winspear Foundation. She regularly plays as a soloist and chamber musician, and in her spare time she works with the international classical music festival and the arte solidale festival, a charitable organization, to promote young artists and help underage in need. I am supporting. The territory of Lake Como.
Special Mention

Hiroto Nakada

Gihoon Yoon

Ladislav Palkovič

Evelyn Diamant
We look forward to welcoming you to the Montecatini International Piano Competition 2021.
The application will be available soon “STAY TUNED”