18th- 19th August 2019
Prize Winners
18th- 19th August 2019
Prize Winners
1st Prize
Wei-Ting Hsieh
Biography
Taiwanese pianist Wei-Ting Hsieh was born in 1996 and she has learned for playing piano since 4 years old. Wei-Ting studied with Chin Chuan Chang in Taiwan. She studied with Michel Beroff, Laurent Cabasso, Marie-Josèphe Jude and Jonas Vitaud in Conservatoire National Supérieur de Danse et de Musique de Paris. She won the 2nd prize in Ettlingen International Competition in Germany in 2014. She won the 1st prize in Concours Virtuoses du Coeur in France in 2015. She was the semi-finalist of Concours Long Thibauld Crespin in France in 2015. She won the 1st prize in Windsor International Piano Competition in 2017, published her debut album in 2018 by KNS Classical Label Recording. She was selected as one of the 24 competitors in the Leeds Piano Competition 2018. She won the Silver Medal in Manhattan International Music Competition in 2019. She performed in several festivals as the 15th Steinway Piano Festival in Hamburg, Germany, the 32eme Festival Chopin à Paris “Piano à portes ouvertes”, the NTUE International Piano Festival in Taiwan, the festival of L’Académie Ravel, and also the live broadcast program of France Musique. She performed in Festival du Vexin in France and also in Venise, Italy. She also gives recitals and chamber music concerts in France and Taiwan. She performed with Orchestre Symphonique du Pays Basque this summer. She has also worked on chamber music with many grand musicians as Maria Belooussova, Itamar Golan, Michael Hentz and Francois Salque.
1st Prize
Arina Lazgiian
Biography
Arina Lazgiian, concert pianist, was born in Krasnoyarsk, Russia in 1991. In June 2019, she graduated from the Royal College of Music in London with the Artist Diploma, under Professor Vanessa Latarche. Arina has already been awarded her Master`s degree from the Royal College of Music where she was supported by a Future of Russia Scholarship. Since arriving at the Royal College of Music, she has won the RCM Concerto Competition 2017 performing Saint-Saëns’ Concerto No. 2 twice with the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra. Arina also won the Hopkinson Gold Medal for piano in 2017. She was a finalist in the Jaques Samuel Intercollegiate Piano Competition at Wigmore Hall in 2017. In June 2018 Arina Lazgiian was announced as the recipient of the Benjamin Britten Piano Fellowship for 2018/19, awarded by the Royal College of Music. This Fellowship, named after the renowned composer and RCM alumnus, supports an exceptional pianist who has been accepted to the RCM Artist Diploma Course. The same year, Arina was selected to go through to the final stages of The Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition for the summer of 2019 in Bolzano, Italy. In December 2018, Arina was invited by the Royal College of Music to perform at a large fundraising VIP event, the Soirée d’Or, at the Victoria and Albert museum, Raphael Gallery. In March 2019 Arina performed on France-Musiques’s programme Générations- live in Paris. In July 2019, she was invited to Majorca to perform at the International Piano Festival “Torre de Canyamel” which included the renowned pianist Arkadi Volodos. The same year in July Arina has won the third prize on ‘Flame Concours’ in Paris, France. She has recently recorded Liszt’s Dante sonata which will be the musical basis of a newly-choreographed ballet film, with dancers directed by Margaret Williams. Between 2010 and 2015, Arina was enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory where she studied under the renowned pianist Vera Gornostayeva. Before this, she studied with Yelena Plyashkevich at the Moscow Gnessin Special Music School between 2005 and 2010. In 2005 Arina was granted an honorary award from the mayor of St Petersburg. She has performed at the Grand Hall of St Petersburg’s Philharmonic Society, the Academic Capella and the Small Hall Glazunov in St Petersburg, the Salle Cortot and the Centre Spirituel et Culturel Russe in Paris. Her repertoire includes various compositions by Domenico Scarlatti, Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikowsky, Dvorak, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Faure, Busoni, Mussorgsky, Rakhmaninov, Medtner, Scryabin and Desyatnikov
2nd Prize
Alis An
Biography
Special Mention

Hiroto Nakada

Gihoon Yoon

Ladislav Palkovič

Evelyn Diamant
We are looking forward to welcoming you on our Montecatini International Piano Competition 2021
Applications will be available soon “STAY TUNED”