Australian takes Grand Prize in International ePiano Junior Competition
Congratulations to the winners of the ePiano Junior Competition, 2017
Shuan Hern Lee, AUSTRALIA, 1st and Variations Prizes
Youl Sun, SOUTH KOREA, 2nd and Schubert Prizes
Andrew Li, USA, 3rd Prize
Rio Rai Rui, AUSTRALIA, 4th Prize
Yongqiu Liu, CHINA, 5th Prize
The e-Piano Junior Competition is a bi-annual event conducted by the University of Minnesota’s School of Music in partnership with Yamaha. This is an international classical piano competition open to performers up to the age of 17. Of the 60 world finalists, for the very first time, 3 were selected from Australia.
These gifted performers were Rio Kai Rui and Calvin Abdiel from Sydney, and Shuan Hern Lee from Perth. They presented a 20 minute repertoire of contrasting styles, including Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Debussy. Quite the virtuosos!
The auditions were held on January 19th 2017 at the Conservatorium High School, Sydney on their new Yamaha DCFX Concert Grand Piano.
What made these auditions unique is that they were recorded live utilising Yamaha’s proprietary Disklavier technology. Through this amazing technology, the competitors recorded performances and captured video are able to be synced together. This enables the performances to be replicated on any Disklavier, note for note, pedal for pedal, with every phrase and nuance captured exactly as the original performance.
The virtual performances were assessed on a Disklavier in Minnesota by an international jury. In July, 5 successful competitors were invited to perform with the Minnesota Orchestra with a first prize of $10,000. Two were Aussies - Shuan and Rio!
Congratulations to first place Shuan Hern Lee and fourth place Rio Kai Rui.
