The Sendai International Music Competition is a triennial

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

and

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

music competition held in Sendai,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, presented in association with the Sendai International Music Competition Organizing Committee, City of Sendai and the Sendai Cultural Foundation. In the competition there is no overall winner, rather there are six winners each from the violin and piano categories, with the first-placed winners receiving the highest

prize A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

. Although the competition is international, most award-winners have been from either Europe or Asia. The first award-winner from outside those continents was American

Sean Kennard Sean Eric Kennard (born October 3, 1984) is an American classical pianist. Early years Sean Kennard was born in San Diego, California to a Japanese mother and American father. He grew up in Hawaii and his family moved to Philadelphia when he b ...

, who finished fifth in the 2004 competition's piano category.

History

The Sendai International Music Competition is held every three years. at the Sendai City Youth Cultural Centre in

. It has the stated purpose of "contributing to the development of world musical culture and the promotion of international cultural exchange through the discovery of young talented musicians". It was established in 2001 to commemorate Sendai City's 400th anniversary, and has been a member of the

World Federation of International Music Competitions The World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC) is an organization based in Geneva, Switzerland that maintains a network of the internationally recognized organisations that aim to discover the most promising young talents in classi ...

(WFIMC) since 2005. Five competitions have been held, the most recent being in 2013, with the next scheduled to take place on 21 May to 26 June 2016.

Format

The competition consists of four stages: a pre-selection round, followed by a preliminary round, and then the semi-final and the final rounds in which all pieces are performed with an orchestra. The competition is split into two categories: violin and piano. The number of contestants who progress from the preliminary round to the semi-finals cannot exceed 12 and the contestants passing through to the final cannot exceed six. In the preliminary, semi-final, and final stages of the competition the performances are chosen from a predetermined repertoire; the contestants must choose a different piece for each round. The judging panel decides the placing of the prizewinners from first through sixth. The prize money is as follows:

Winners

The first competition was held in 2001. Chinese Mengla Huang and Bulgarian Svetlin Roussev topped the violin category and the Italian Giuseppe Andaloro took first prize in the piano section. In the second tournament in 2004, Japanese Saeka Matsuyama won the violin part in the final and Xiaotang Tan from China came in first place in the piano category. In the 2007 finals, which contained five Russian contestants, the violin section was topped by Russian Alena Baeva while in the piano category the Japanese Yuya Tsuda came first. The 2010 violin competition was won by the German/South Korean

Clara-Jumi Kang Clara-Jumi Kang (, born in Mannheim, Germany on 10 June 1987) is a South Korean-German classical violinist. She won the Indianapolis International Violin Competition in 2010 with five additional prizes. Korean newspaper ''Dong-A Times'' listed ...

, while

Vadym Kholodenko Vadym Kholodenko (born 1986, in Kyiv) is a Ukrainians, Ukrainian pianist, and winner of the gold medal at the Fourteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, who captured the attention of jury, audience, and critics alike for "mesmerizing ...

of Ukraine won the piano competition. As of 2013 there have been five competitions.

2001

2004

2007

2010

2013

2016

2019

2022

References

General

2001 Violin Prize-Winners
Sendai International Music Competition. Retrieved on 22 May 2008.

Sendai International Music Competition. Retrieved on 22 May 2008.

Sendai International Music Competition. Retrieved on 22 May 2008.

Sendai International Music Competition. Retrieved on 22 May 2008.

Sendai International Music Competition. Retrieved on 22 May 2008.

Specific

External links

Official website
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