The Fryderyk Chopin Society of Warsaw will hold the First International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition for Amateurs from 9-13 September 2009 in Warsaw.
For more information visit: www.konkurs.amator.chopin.pl

Thank you for the information!

Why is this thread rated three stars?!? There's nothing to rate!

After all the discussions about what it means to be an 'amateur' pianist, and whether or not people with music degrees should participate in amateur competitions, I had to go check out there rules on that front:

3. The Competition is open to persons of all nationalities who
- were born before or on 1 September 1984,
- do not earn their living from piano performance or instruction,
- are not studying piano at a music school / conservatoire or who completed their formal
piano studies not later than in 2005.


Interesting compromise on the music degree, requiring a 3 year gap in completion.

I would assume that "studying piano at a music school/conservatoire" and "completing formal piano studies" refers to being enrolled in a university or conservatory as a full time music student...not taking lessons from these places' community music programs or with professors as an amateur?

it still means that professionals (who may not be currently earning the living as pianist) will be allowed participate. if one has studied piano performance in music school or conservatory, one becomes a professional pianist technically, whether or not one is making living of it. i would doubt any amateurs without piano performance degree would be good enough to compete with those who have.

also, what about those piano teachers who have different day jobs and yet teach or play piano part time? i know a piano teacher who's IT programmer by day and teach piano nights and weekends, and has piano performance degrees from a couple of schools.

Really? Well that's the disputed point, isn't it. There's a loose, everyday definition of "professional" which seems to mean "someone who's studied piano at college", or simply "a good pianist". But I've always understood the true meaning of "professional" is that one earns one's living from doing it[/b], like a professional golfer. If you're good you might be said to play like a professional (like a professional does, that is, presumably, well) but this has meant some people use it as a synonym for "accomplished" or "university-trained".
In other words, I think your definition is loose, signa, and not "technically" correct at all .

you're right, but on the other hand, you have very loose definition about earning living as a pianist too, which is highly debatable.

'professional' also means that one is formally trained in a field. i remember that a graduate student in school once said to me that he's a professional engineer, meaning he's trained for it, even though he didn't hold a job for it yet.

Sounds redundant to me. I would have thought "engineer" would have been enough. Unless there's a whole lot of engineers around who aren't trained. I think he should have said "qualified engineer". But maybe I'm a pedant .

By definition, a profession is any vocation requiring a knowledge (through training and/or study) of some area of learning or science; therefor a "professional" is someone who has that special training. In everyday terms, however, "professional" generally means following that occupation as a means of livelihood or gain, does it not?

Once again, the grey area comes up concerning those who have had formal training and who have, at one time, earned their living from teaching or performing piano. The perameters are voiced in the present tense: "... those who do not (now) earn their living from piano performance or instruction." Similarly, once can have had formal training just as long as that formal training ended at least three years ago.

It would seem to me, as in the case of so many competitions, the playing field is far from level.

Regards,

Well, I have a fairly recent Master's degree in anthropology, but I'm not a 'professional anthropologist'...I make my living as an administrative/executive assistant.

There's a big difference in being good enough to get a degree in many fields, and good enough to get a job! In my case, a job in that field is pretty much a professorship...I saw what a PhD's job looked like, and didn't want it enough to spend more years and more money in pursuit.

Everyone's definition of terms like 'amateur' is going to be slightly different. Personally I think that competitions that disallow those with degrees in music performance come closest to the spirit of the term.

I am, though, aware that a degree in music from Podunk U is very different than one from the Manhattan School or Julliard. I also found the 3 year gap above to be an interesting and possibly fruitful compromise...although 3 years is not all that long. Perhaps it's long enough for a person to decide they're not going to cut it as a pro and it's time to try amateur competitions

you're right again, and it's redundant. i was saying it by emphasizing the meaning of 'professional'. btw, BruceD might have explained it better than me.

That would be a sensible assumption, but who knows what they really mean. Don't forget that Jon Nakamatsu won the Cliburn when he was only taking private lessons and his real profession was teaching German; it's a little hard for me to wrap my mind around the concept that an "amateur" would win that competition.

If someone spends 10 hours a day in the office, and then teaches piano for a couple of hours a couple days a week, to me she's not a pro.

Basically because that person can't spend the whole day, or most of it, at the piano.

Do you have the English version?

top right of that page...

Sigh. What a great opportunity that would be. If we could just take time off from our "professions" to practice and polish some pieces. Work and family life would only allow me to go to such an event cold and unprepared.

The range of skill level would probably be very wide. I hope they release video recordings of the competition. It would be a good learning experience for those wanting to enter the Second International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition for Amateurs.

Looking for a one or two round piano competition somewhere in europe...end of 2008 or beginning of 2009. Anyone know of any? I was told that there are many in italy, but haven't found too many.

Yes, we do have the English version - see the right upper corner

Being a trained engineer (but not a "Professional Engineer), I can offer a little insight into that term. "Professional Enginer" is used (or only should be used) by an engineer who has passed the professional engineer requirements. These (at least in my time - late 50's) included samples of work done and exams. It was pretty tough to complete and would have required about 3 years of work experience to qualify. If one met the requirements, one was granted the right to use the letters PE after their name. I don't know of a similar situation in music performance, although for piano technicians the term RPT is similar, I suppose.