By all standards, this is a young competition. First run in 1977, its maiden competition boasted Andre Laplante, Daniel Blumenthal, Dennis Lee (left), Jeno Jando and Piers Lane (right) among its prize winners. Subsequent editions helped shape the reputations of Chia Chou (of the Parnassus Trio), Bernd Glemser (another of Naxos' house pianists), Eduardus Halim (who was one of Horowitz's last students), David Buechner (who later became Sarah Davis B.), Kong Xiang Dong (now the head of the biggest private piano school in China), Olivier Cazal (who cynically greeted his surprise 2^nd prize at the finalists' recital in 1992 with Chopin's Funeral March) and Ayako Uehara (whose 2nd prize at 2000 was topped by the Gold Medal at Moscow just two years later).

I arrived in Sydney on the morning of 7 July with the sound of piano music (from the Singapore International Piano Festival) still ringing in my ears, just in time to hear more piano music, performed by mere babes. The youngest semi-finalist Alexander Lubiantsev (left) from Russia is seventeen and a half, almost 75 years younger, and under one-fifth of the age of Gyorgy Sandor, who had played in Singapore a few days before. Sasha isn't alone, he is joined by equally youthful Australia's Jayson Gillham and New Zealand's John Chen, who celebrated his 18^th just a month ago.

As Fate would have it, the two remaining hometown boys are pitted against each other with their 50-minute semi-final recitals scheduled in the same afternoon. 17-year-old Jayson Gillham (right) from Queensland, a Dimitris Sgouros (remember him?) lookalike but less dorky, is the first to begin. His Scarlatti and Schubert are clean but betray a certain lack of experience, but his choice of Chopin's 12 Etudes Op.10, performed with a fearless regard of the technical challenges, could easily make it to this edition's best solo performances disc. A contender for the finals, I thought. 

23-year-old Daniel Hill (left) from Melbourne had spent time in Budapest and St Petersburg, and this worked distinctly to his advantage - his selection of Rachmaninov Etudes-tableaux Op.39 bore all the marks of quintessential Slavic pianism - passion, brooding disquiet and virtuosity all rolled in one. His accomplished Beethoven sonata (Op.27 No.1) and Franck Prelude, Chorale and Fugue also confirmed one thought - Game Over, twenty grand to Hill. 

It seemed unlikely that the youngsters - who would hardly have had much chamber music experience anyway - would crack the code to Shostakovich. After all, how much of life (let alone suffering and other privations) had they gone through? Anyway, the Shostakovich was relatively shorter than the other piano trios, and probably had the least notes (many of which were repetitive) to go through. But they did manage to pull through: just play with extremes of dynamics (very soft and very loud, very slow and very fast), put on a pained expression on the face, and hope for the best! Needless to say, the Russian Rem Urasin (left), a veteran at 28 whose sleek features could pass for a body double for Chopin or Liszt or even Paganini, seemed most at home in this repertory. 

I still ponder on the need for a chamber music round in a piano competition. Most of all because being a good chamber musician is usually at odds with the type of pianist that wins a piano competition. There are of course exceptions like Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu and Martha Argerich (all of whom won important 1^st prizes in their time and are excellent in chamber music as well) but many of the most musical of pianists - a pre-requisite for chamber music - do not always walk home with the gold. My mind goes to the likes of Jeno Jando (who won the Chamber Music prize in 1977), Dennis Lee, Toh Chee Hung, Kathryn Stott, Martin Roscoe and their kind.

Given that the semi-final recital required either a Beethoven or Schubert sonata as the set piece, it came as a surprise to me that only one of so many good Schubert sonatas (the A major Op.120 played by Gillham) and a mere six of 32 Beethoven sonatas were offered. This led to four performances of Op.31 No.3 "The Hunt" and three performances of Op.81a "Les Adieux" - both works in the key of E flat major - none of which stood out other than the unfortunate lapses of Brenda Jones (an Asian-American despite her Welsh name) who otherwise produced some wonderful moments in Schumann's Fantasy in C, and the lovely Arensky Piano Trio No.1 in her chamber segment. The best Beethoven, in my opinion, went to Rem Urasin's authoritative reading of Op.110, which was not only technically assured but had colour, nuance and a variety of tonal shadings.

Women outnumbered the men seven to five in the semi-finals but quantity did not guarantee quality. All five men were stand-outs; perhaps the performance that won the most hearts was Lubiantsev in Liszt's Sonata in B minor which proved that age had little to do with giving a strong reading - with its highs and lows managed with the consummate ease of a concert-hardened veteran - even if there were moments of wide-eyed innocence. On receiving a tumultuous applause, his response was an ear-to-ear grin and a shrug of the shoulders. He probably does not realise how good he was!

Of the seven women, six were of Asian or partially-Asian origin. This could somewhat account for the homogeneity of many of the performances, most of which were more adequate rather than inspired. My sympathies went to 23-year-old Jie Zheng (left) from China, whose very musical Mendelssohn Piano Trio No.1 was undone by a nightmarish recital round. Less so for Baldoria, whose Beethoven Op.101 was perversely flabby (as if she had meant it that way) but produced some Latino heat in Ginastera's musically empty Piano Sonata No.1. Even much less so for 22-year-old Chinese Shu-Fang Huang, whose facial grimacing, faux profound head shakes (as if saying "Isn't this music I play so soo… wonderful?") and pouting of lips rivaled Lang Lang's, as she thundered through three sonatas - Beethoven's Les Adieux, Chopin's Marche Funebre and Prokofiev's No.7 - as though they were all written by one composer - Prokofiev.

Three days went by swiftly, and the verdict would be equally swift. I tot up my picks for the finals - all the men with the exception of the slightly raw Gillham (his time will come in 2008!) and two ladies - Arnicane and the stable if not memorable Yang Shen (one of her former teachers Arie Vardi was on the jury, but that was not a consideration).

The competition's venerable Artistic Director and Chairman of the Jury Warren Thomson read out the verdict - and I get four out of the six. Those would be the four men, and two ladies I had not considered - Huang (left, much to my surprise, and there was a noticeable tempering of applause after her name was announced) - and the reliable and reassuring Ayano Shimada (right). Perhaps the jury listened with their eyes closed, and that could be an advantage in Huang's case, although she does look ravishing (with tinted contact lenses) in her promotional photo. Could Ayano Shimada be the Noriko Ogawa of this competition? After all, she will be playing the Prokofiev Third Concerto in the finals.    

With all the names in, it looks like yet another Russian versus Asian contest of wills and fingers, that is unless Daniel Hill can do something about it. On show from 14 July will be four more evenings of Mozart concertos with the Australian Chamber Orchestra (current employers of former Inkpotter Benjamin Chee and William Beh) and Russian concertos (the original requirement of 19^th and 20^th century concerto usually comes down to this) with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Two performances of Rachmaninov's Second Concerto (to be played by Huang and Lubiantsev) and one each of Rach Three (Chen), Tchaik One (Urasin), Prok Two (Hill) and Three(Shimada) on 16 & 17 July should get the pulses racing. Oh, I do miss the time when the Schumann and Beethoven Three or Four used to win competitions!

Watch this space.

Editor's Note : This is probably the first time The Flying Inkpot is publishing an article of an event beyond our fair shores and attached peninsula. All photographs were taken from the Sydney International Piano Competition website. More information on the upcoming repertoire can also be gleaned from this website, and broadcasts of the competition are available courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Classic FM station.