The Hamamatsu is underway with streaming video of the performances. They also are providing streaming video of the prior performances to date. Great camera work on these videos, plus the first round requirements are a P&F from the WTC, so Bach worshippers (like myself) will think they are in heaven. The link to the website is:

http://www.hipic.jp/eng/index.html

I think you will enjoy this amusing incident. I was at a party recently, and a very obnoxious know it-all was there. He always had to have the last word, and was addicted to one-up-manship. there was nothing that he did not have an opinion about.
He is a self-proclaimed concert pianist, but none of us have ever heard him play, and he is vague about when and where he has performed ,except to state that he has "concertized throughout the U.S, and Europe, and has gotten rave reviews."
Someone mentioned the Hamamatsu competition, and Mr. know-it-all, said, Oh, I have heard Hamamatsu, and I think he is over-rated. He uses far too much pedal.

WE all looked at each other,and had all we could do to stiffle our laughter.

None of us made any comment. We all decided to just let it ride. Since then, one of my friends refers to him as "Mr. Hamamatsu." Gaby Tu

how come you didn't invite him to play at the party? that would have revealed everything about this Mr. then!

thanks for the link and will check it later!

Ive listened to 3 participants so far. I'm enjoying it.
I like these competitions that we can look at through internet. Thanks for giving the link DameMyra.

Peter

Great link. I've added it to my favorites. Does anyone know of other links that offer music related video (such as universities, or cultural centers).

Listening to one of the 16 !!!!!!! year old contestants playing the entire Chopin Op. 25.

What a thrilling experience to hear the 16 year old beautiful young woman playing the Bach/Busoni Chaconne. Also, her playing of the Mozart C Minor Fantasy was breathtaking. Such talent. thanks for posting the link to the website. Gaby Tu

i much prefer this 18 year old: Alexej Gorlatch. he's playing now and fantastic...

Watching the 16 year old Wang Chun plays is a real treat.

Another question:
Does anyone know the link of the Chopin competition videos that occured during the competition?
They were not streaming, but you can find them on the site that I don't know the name of.

Any help about the link?

This Chopin competition in Warsaw?
http://www.konkurs15.chopin.pl/index.php?Lang=en&

I don't see any video there unless it's on some other Chopin website.

The result is finally here:

1st prize - Alexej Gorlatch (Ukraine)
2nd prize - Sergey Kuznetsov (Russia)
3rd prize - Tae-Hyung Kim (Korea)
Tomoki Kitamura (Japan)
5th prize - Chun Wang (China)
6th prize - Nikolai Saratovsky (Russia)

=======================================================

Starting from the 2nd stage none of the contestants chose to play the Bosie. I noticed one picked Kawai, two picked Steinway, the rest all opted for that beautiful Yamaha.

I particularly enjoyed watching the concerto round. Just wonder if there's some way to capture the video streams ...

i really liked that 1st prize winner during the competition and couldn't believe he actually won it. great!

I also liked Gorlatch, though I was hoping Kuznetsov would come in first. I couldn't believe no Americans made it to the finals. I really liked Claire Huangci's playing.

I am very suprised by the young 15 year old from Japan coming in 3rd. His repertoire was nowhere near the level the others were playing at and I didn't think he would make it past round one. But he did seem to be an audience favorite.

Oh, and one other thing....

Everybody here always seems to talk about the Rach 2 & 3 and Prok 2 & 3 and how you have to play one of the "really big" concertos in order to win a major competition, well, Gorlatch played the Beethoven 3 in the finals and walked away with 1st place!

15 year old boy(his name is Kitagawa) is not audience's favorite but Ms. Nakamura's. She is the chairperson of judges at Hamamatsu. She set him up to perform the very same concerto with the same orchestra twice before the competition(last one was just two weeks ago).

Since a lot of people complained to the message board about unfairness, they shut it down.....

Wow, that explains a lot.

I have a problem with this videos......I "play" on them and it takes like ONE hour to watch one of them.....is my problem?.....I would like to see them all.....but ONE hour is too much ^^

Are we talking about the same guy? I watched Tomoki Kitamura (15 years old) who played Ravel Concerto in G. Here is his profile from the site:

=======================================================================

The 6th Hamamatsu International Piano Competition(2006)
No.40 KITAMURA Tomoki

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born on April 22, 1991. (Kasugai, Aichi Prefecture)
Teachers: F. Eguchi, M. Onishi, S. Niwa
5th Prizewinner of Ettlingen International Competition for Young Pianists (Category A) 2004, 1st Prize and Jury's award winner of Tokyo Music Competition 2005.
Currently a student of Nagoya City Sakuragaoka Junior High School
=======================================================================

For the 1st round each video is about 20 minutes.

2nd round each is around 40-50 minutes.

3rd round each is around 40-65 minutes.

We're not talking about some students' recital. We're talking about a world class piano competition. The time frame is specified in the repertoire requirement page.

Rgds,
AndrewG

Who won the competition. I was hoping Wang Chun won. Does anyone know for sure?

I know that, but 40-60mins never took me more than 25 or 30 mins (talking in a GOOD video quality), maybe is my conexion working bad ^^

Actually, Kitagawa performed very well for 15 year old and show a lot of talent and maturity. However, like DameMyra said, it's obvious that his skill and repertoire level has not been to the top level yet.

Do you remember Ms. Nakamura's name from last year's Chopin competition? She was the judge that was said to give ridiculously lower score for top two American contestants in the first round.

I personally liked Alexej Gorlatch and happy he came in the first. But you know what? He messed up the second movement of Chopin's sonata by repeating the same phrase! I should also mention that his teacher was the one of judge as well!

Maybe that explains why Howard Na didn't make it pass the first round, again.

I don't understand why Howard went to compete in the enemy's land again!

Before closed, the message board said that he threw tantrum for not be able to play KAWAI's piano this year

This is probably the worst competition in the world in terms of policital ufairness - I heard firsthand from one of the prizewinners of the last competition that the only way to make into the finals was to attend this competition's summer "Hamamatsu Academy", where the jurors have a seminar or something.

Howard Na didn't make it through the first round of the Chopin competition. He didn't make it through the first round of 2006 piano-e-competition in Minnesota, and he didn't make it through the first round of this competition. Seriously, I don't think it's about 1 judge. Nakamura was not even one of the judges in the piano-e-competition.

To my knowledge, both Alexander Kobrin and Rafal Blechacz did not attend the Hamamatsu Academy before the competition in 2003.
Though it certainly has certain degree of political unfairness(expecially in this year), it produces numerous great medal winners in big competitions like Sergai Babayan, Alexander Kobrin, Rafal Blechacz, Alessio Bax, Ayako Unhera, Lim Dong Hyek...etc

I dont understand why HOward Na did not pass the 1st round.
His playing and maturity is above everybody.
Why the judge can not judge fairly?

The English language pages are a little slow to be updated, however the Japanese language results page can be accessed using the link below.

http://www.hipic.jp/7th/entrant/winning.php

Kind regards,
James
x

I Would have created a new topic to discuss winners of the latest competition (the 7th) instead of posting that information to a three-year-old thread about the 6th competition held over three years ago