Scholarships for two up-and-coming young pianists now part of the Lazise-based competition
Encouraging international piano playing talent at the level of youthful debutants and emerging performers already on the world stage. This is the idea of the Amadeus Competition, founded in 2019 by the Amadeus Academy in collaboration with the Municipality of Lazise, using the thirty years’ experience of its founders, pianists Valentina Fornari, now artistic director of the competition, and Alberto Nosè.
This year’s Amadeus Competition celebrated its third edition in Lazise from 22 to 26 March, divided into two sections: the Amadeus Prize for pianists up to 35 years of age, and the International Amadeus Piano Competition divided into six categories for pianists up to 25 years of age. Around 90 participants came from all over the world (Armenia, Canada, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey, China, Japan, Russia) and almost all European countries, the youngest being seven-year-old Canadian Lee Charlotte Yan Fung. Judges for these young pianists came from an international jury composed of maestros Alberto Nosé(Italy), Giuseppe Andaloro (Italy), Vovka Ashkenazy (Russia), Maria Murawska (Poland) and Aki Kuroda (Japan).
This Garda-based event aims to give young musicians who have already started their careers as pianists the chance to grow not only musically but also personally. The competition sets out to encourage, by comparison, the desire to make music together and to share a stage for the expression of musical talent and artistic abilities.
This is exactly the same spirit that the Masi Foundation used in its support of the third edition, creating the Special Critics’ Prize with two scholarships attached, the first for one of the three finalists of the Amadeus Prize, and the second for a category winner. The Foundation’s decision is fully in line with its institutional aim of promotional activity for the culture of the region, and music in particular, as is shown by its rich history of support for musical activities in the Veneto in the past.
Choosing the two winners of the Masi Prize, was a jury formed of concert pianist and Radio Classica presenter, Luca Ciammarughi; musicologist and librarian-conservator of the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona, Michele Magnabosco; and musicologist and music critic, Luisa Sclocchis. The two scholarships were awarded to 16-year-old Denny Costantini from Abruzzo, the winner of category D, and to Adam Kałduński from Poland, the overall winner of the Amadeus Prize in the closing concert in competition with three other finalists: (in order of ranking) Junhui Chen from China, and Michelle Candotti and Pierpaolo Buggiani, both from Italy. Apart from the 4,000 euro Amadeus Prize, Kałduński was also the winner of the Audience Prize and three other awards: one given in memory of Giuseppe Peretti, one for Digital Recording, and one for ‘Romantic Mezzano’.
