The Sydney International Piano Competition is a music competition, presented in Sydney and broadcast live throughout Australia and internationally. It is held every four years, over a three-week period in July–August, and is internationally recognised as one of the world's great piano competitions.

The competition was established in July 1977 by Claire Dan, with co-founders Rex Hobcroft and Robert Tobias, and was admitted as a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions in 1978.

The artistic director from its inception until 2015 was Warren Thomson, who also served as chairman of the jury from 1992 until 2012. In April 2015, following Thomson's death in February, Piers Lane (a former competitor and juror) was announced as the artistic director of the 2016 competition.

For the first time in its history, the competition due to be held in July 2020 was postponed to 2021, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Structure

A total of 32 (originally 36) pianists are selected to participate in the competition. Worldwide auditions are held to select the entrants, who must be aged between 18 and 32. Traditionally, the previous winner presents a Gala Opening recital.

Rounds

The competition consists of three stages – preliminaries, semi finals and finals. All 32 competitors appear in the preliminaries which consists of two rounds. Round 1 of the preliminaries is a 20-minute solo recital and round 2 is a 30-minute recital. Competitors must include an Australian work in one of these rounds. The organisers have collaborated with Australian Music Centre to compile a list of suggested works by Australian pianists. Miriam Hyde's Valley of Rocks was one of the pieces set for the 1988 competition; it was chosen by 23 of the contestants, and it went on to become her best-known work.

After the preliminary rounds, the best 12 are chosen to proceed to the Semi Finals which consists of two rounds - Semi Final Round 1 is a 65-minute recital and Semi Final Round 2 is a chamber work. In the 12th competition, this will be with either violin or cello. Six competitors advance to the finals, again consisting of two rounds, in which they play two piano concertos with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. In the 12th competition, Finalists will play an unconducted concerto with Camarata Queensland in Finals Round 1 and a piano concerto with Sydney Symphony Orchestra in Finals Round 2.

Venues

Until 2016, the first stages took place at the Seymour Centre, University of Sydney. In 2016 the venue was changed to Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The final stage is held in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House except in 2020 when the finals will be held at the Sydney Town Hall due to renovations at the Sydney Opera House.

Broadcast

All stages are broadcast live on radio throughout Australia and to the world online, by ABC Classic FM. In 2020, ABC Classic considered the Sydney International Piano Competition one of its highlights of the year. In 2016, the competition was streamed live and free on the competition's website and social media channels.

In 2021, for the first time since the competitions inception in 1977, patrons were required to pay a subscription fee to watch and listen to the competition. The ABC for the first time did not broadcast the event on free-to-air television. Instead subscriptions which ranged from $20-$30 per session or an overall online subscription of $350 were charged by SIPCA.

Prizes

The winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition receives a prize of $50,000 and a number of engagements including a national tour of Australia, international recital opportunities and a CD recording. Smaller prizes are awarded for other placings. In the competition's forty-year history, no Australian pianist has won first prize.

Musical patrons

The list of musicians and others who have been involved with the competition as either patrons or jurors includes Vladimir Ashkenazy, Lazar Berman, Sir Bernard Heinze, Eileen Joyce, Eugene List, Sir Charles Mackerras, Denis Matthews, Hephzibah Menuhin, John O'Conor, Harold C. Schonberg, Sir Georg Solti and Gordon Watson.

2016 Competition

The 11th Sydney International Piano Competition took place from the 6 to 23 July 2016. The preliminary rounds and semi final sounds were held in the Verbrugghen Hall at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The finals were held at the Sydney Opera House.

2016 Prize Winners

1st Prize	Andrey Gugnin
2nd Prize	Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev
3rd Prize	Moye Chen
4th Prize	Kenneth Broberg
5th Prize	Oxana Shevchenko
6th Prize	Jianing Kong

2016 Jury Members

Sa Chen
Nikolai Demidenko
Ewa Kupiec
Hamish Milne
Noriko Ogawa
Orli Shaham
Carl Vine AO
Timothy Walker AM
Mira Yevtich

2016 Special Prizewinners

Prizewinner	Details
Andrey Gugnin	Best Overall Concerto sponsored and selected by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Jianing Kong	Best 18th Century Concerto donated by Drs Keith and Eileen Ong
Andrey Gugnin	Best 19th or 20th Century Concerto donated by Janice Tuynman in memory of her husband Hank Tuynman
Andrey Gugnin	Best Violin and Piano Sonata donated by Susie Bate and Annie Moulden in memory of their uncle, Warren Thomson OAM
Oxana Shevchenko	Best Piano Quintet donated by David and Jan Robinson
Andrey Gugnin	Best Preliminaries Round 1 Recital donated by Ron, Lynn and Marcus Ogden
Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev	Best Preliminaries Round 2 Recital donated by Dr Robert Mitchell in memory of Denis Condon
Jianing Kong	Best Semi Finals Recital donated by Dr Robert Mitchell in memory of Denis Condon
Daniel Lebhardt	Most Promising Pianist Sponsored by Universal Music Australia
Tony Lee	Best Australian Pianist donated by Youth Music Foundation
Gyu Tae Ha	Best Performance of an Australian Piece donated by Hugh Hallard and Judy Hunt in memory of Warren Thomson OAM
Sergey Belyavskiy	Chairman of the Board’s Prize for the Best Performance of a work by Liszt donated by Neville Grace
Ming Xie	People’s Choice sponsored by Yamaha
Ming Xie	Medal for the Most Promising Competitor donated by Graham Wickes in memory of Australian pianist Dennis Hennig
Martin Malmgren	Jury Discretionary Award donated by the 2016 Jury members
Ming Xie and Alyosha Jurinic	Alink-Argerich Foundation Award

Criticisms

Despite its generally recognised prestige, the competition has been in the past strongly criticised by some established Australian pianists. The pianist and composer Larry Sitsky said: "The title Sydney International Piano Competition sounds grand and definitive. But behind the facade is a rather shabby private party in progress". The Liszt specialist and composer Leslie Howard said: "I was asked to be on the international advisory panel for this years ago ... and since then have never heard from any of them. ... No-one, of course, will ever hear from any of the prize-winners. They all seem to have had rather too close connections with members of the jury, which in any case is composed mostly of lacklustre teachers ... who have never been professional concert pianists in their lives and wouldn't recognise good and original artistry if it jumped up and bit them". Michael Kieran Harvey has asked: "What does the complete lack of success past SIPCA winners have had at making a career say about the cloth-eared selectors who travel around the world at great expense auditioning young hopefuls? Why, if SIPCA is such an internationally significant competition, are second-rate teachers no-one's ever heard of, to say nothing of completely unqualified non-musicians, sitting in judgment at this supposedly premier music event?" Despite his criticism, Harvey agreed to become the commentator for the ABC's radio broadcast of the 2000 competition, "in an attempt to provide some objective analysis".

Critics also pointed to the dominance of Warren Thomson, who single-handedly chose the repertoire and all the jurors, many of whom are associated with the Australian Institute of Music (AIM), of which he was artistic director, Professional Development Programs. With assistance from others, he also auditioned all the entrants and chose the 36 competitors. Alexei Yemtsov, a competitor at the 2000 competition, lived in Thomson's home and Thomson became his official guardian. That year, the minimum age was lowered from 18 to 17, although Thomson denied it had anything to do with Yemtsov's being only 17 at the time. The pianist Simon Tedeschi has said he "has no intention of ever collaborating with Thomson and SIPCA ... The school of pianism with which he associates himself is not to my taste ... The trained-seal mentality makes for poor musicianship, and, ultimately, unhappy lives". Margaret Hair, AIM's former head of keyboard studies, said: "There's a feeling among teachers that with Warren [Thomson] in charge, Australian students have little chance of making the final cut. The most tragic outcome of his effect on the piano scene in this country is a sense of hopelessness that most students now feel".

Critics also pointed to the fact that in some cases competitors are the students of members of the jury. For example, Mikhail Yanovitsky and Dmitry Grigortsevich, finalists in the 1996 competition, were students of Mikhail Voskresensky and Lev Vlassenko respectively, both of whom were jurors.

The competition came under fire in 1992 when Ukrainian pianist Vitaly Samoshko was denied 6th place due to his disqualification for playing the incorrect Mozart Concerto. There was an error in the Kochel number in the application and whilst he was allowed to perform the concerto he had prepared, as well as Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op 43 he was nonetheless disqualified and 6th prize was not awarded based on legal advice at the time. The jury, not for the first time failed to award French pianist Oliver Cazal 1st prize even though he was the People's Choice winner and was by far and away the stand out performer. His performance of Prokofiev's 3rd Concerto was and is until this day, the benchmark performance.

Prize winners and jurors

Number	Year	Prize winners	Jurors (incomplete)	Music patron
I	1977	Irina Plotnikova	Rex Hobcroft (chairman) Sergei Dorensky Sir Bernard Heinze Ludwig Hoffmann Lucrecia Kasilag Eugene List André-François Marescotti Denis Matthews Hephzibah Menuhin Jan Weber Wiktor Weinbaum	Roger Woodward
		Svetlana Navasardyan
		André Laplante
		Marioara Trifan
		Philip Fowke
		Manana Doijashvili
		Daniel Blumenthal
		Dennis Lee
		Diana Kacso
		Gary Steigerwalt
		Jenő Jandó
		Paweł Chęciński
		Piers Lane
II	1981	Chia Chou	Rex Hobcroft (chairman) Claude Frank Eileen Joyce André-François Marescotti Li Mingqiang Cécile Ousset Frederick Page Abbey Simon Gordon Watson Wiktor Weinbaum Roger Woodward	Sir Bernard Heinze
		Endre Hegedűs
		Catherine Vickers
		Daniel Blumenthal
		David Owen Norris
		Liora Ziv-Li
		Marc Raubenheimer
		Patrick O'Byrne
		Martin Roscoe
		Alec Chien
		Edward Newman
		Yves Rault
III	1985	Du Ning-Wu	Rex Hobcroft (chairman) Eileen Joyce (deputy chairman) Marcello Abbado Nicole Henriot André Laplante Li Min-duo Jurgen Meyer-Josten Elizabeth Powell Harold C. Schönberg Peter Solymos Gordon Watson Kasulo Yasukawa	Eileen Joyce
		Bernd Glemser
		Thomas Duis
		Eduardus Halim
		Arnan Weisel
		Ueli Wiget
		István Gulyás
		Rita Kinka
		David Selig
		Michael Gurt
		Luigi Ceci
		Phillip Shovk
IV	1988	Alexander Korsantia	Rex Hobcroft (chairman) Joan Chissell Nicole Henriot Li Mingqiang Albrecht Roeseler Harold C. Schönberg Warren Thomson Kazuyuki Tohyama Ana Maria Trenchi de Botazzi Arie Vardi Lev Vlassenko	Eileen Joyce
		Riccardo Zadra
		Eduardus Halim
		Sara Davis Buechner
		Sergei Erohin
		Phillip Shovk
		Gilead Mishory
		Anton Batagov
		Matthias Fletzberger
		Victor Sangiorgio
		Asaf Zohar
		Adrienne Krausz
V	1992	Xiang-Dong Kong	Warren Thomson (chairman) Joan Chissell Anthony Fogg Edward Gordon Li Mingqiang William Littler Hiroko Nakamura John O'Conor Elizabeth Powell Albrecht Roeseler Joaquín Soriano Maurice Till Arie Vardi Lev Vlassenko	Sir Charles Mackerras
		Olivier Cazal
		Duncan Gifford
		Hiroshi Arimori
		Anna Malikova
		Vitaly Samoshko
		Daniel Gortler
		Matthias Kirschnereit
		Michele Bolla
		Ivor Janssen
		Young-Ah Kim
		Helen Sim
VI	1996	Sergey Tarasov	Warren Thomson (chairman) Aquiles Delle Vigne Dean Elder Ernest Fleischmann Alexander Jenner György Nador Hiroko Nakamura John Painter John Roos Pnina Salzman Edvard Tchivzhel Mikhail Voskresensky	Sir Georg Solti
		Yuki Takao
		Roberto Cominati
		Christiano Burato
		Mikhail Yanovitsky
		Dimitry Grigortsevich
		Konstantin Masliouk
		Ingo Dannhorn
		David Louie
		Edward Park
		Gábor Rózsa
		Anne Louise-Turgeon
VII	2000	Marina Kolomiitseva	Warren Thomson (chairman) Lazar Berman Timothy Calnin Aquiles Delle Vigne Franz Muller-Heuser Irina Plotnikova Pnina Salzman Phillip Shovk Edvard Tchivzhel Frank Wibaut	Sir Charles Mackerras
		Ayako Uehara
		Evgeny Ukhanov
		Aleksei Volodin
		Vera Kamaneva
		Henry Wong Doe
VIII	2004	John Chen	Warren Thomson (chairman) Nancy Bricard Aquiles Delle Vigne Alexander Jenner Xiang-Dong Kong Piers Lane William Lyne John O'Conor Arie Vardi	Sir Charles Mackerras
		Rem Urasin
		Daniel de Borah
		Ayano Shimada
		Alexander Lubyantsev
		Chu-Fang Huang
IX	2008	Konstantin Shamray	Warren Thomson (chairman) Michael Brimer Aquiles Delle Vigne Manana Doijashvili Norma Fisher Choong-Mo Kang Heinz Medjimorec Ian Munro Phillip Shovk Arie Vardi	Vladimir Ashkenazy
		Tatiana Kolesova
		Ran Dank
		Takashi Sato
		Tomoki Kitamura
		Eric Zuber
X	2012	Avan Yu	Warren Thomson (Chairman) Michael Brimer Aquiles Delle Vigne Manana Doijashvili Norma Fisher Heinz Medjimorec Ian Munro Phillip Shovk Arie Vardi Dan-Wei Wei	Vladimir Ashkenazy
		Nikolay Khozyainov
		Dmitry Onishchenko
		Mikhail Berestnev
		Hao Zhu
		Tanya Gabrielian
XI	2016	Andrey Gugnin	Piers Lane (Chairman) Sa Chen Nikolai Demidenko Ewa Kupiec Hamish Milne Noriko Ogawa Orli Shaham Carl Vine Timothy Walker Mira Yevtich	Valery Gergiev
		Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev
		Moye Chen
		Kenneth Broberg
		Oxana Shevchenko
		Jianing Kong
XII	2021	Alexander Gadjiev	Piers Lane (Chairman) Olivier Cazal Mark Coughlan Đặng Thái Sơn Olga Kern Vladimir Tropp Seta Tanyel Mira Yevtich	Valery Gergiev
		Artem Yasynskyy
		Calvin Abdiel
		Alice Burla
		Ádám Balogh
		Shion Ota
XIII	2023	Jeonghwan Kim	Piers Lane (Chairman) Tanya Bannister Alexander Gavrylyuk Konstantin Shamray Kathryn Stott Alasdair Tait Xiaohan Wang Uta Weyand	Zubin Mehta
		Uladzislau Khandohi
		Yungyung Guo
		Yuanfan Yang
		Wynona Yinuo Wang
		Vitaly Starikov

See also

• List of classical music competitions