INTERNATIONAL VIENNA PIANO COMPETITION 24
"Wiener Klassik"
The International Vienna Piano Competition 2025 "Wiener Klassik" wil be held on July 12/13 in Vienna. The relevant information will be posted on this site by Nov 24. On this site, you can find information about the past competition in 2024. Please sign up for our newsletter to be informed about the next competition in time.
The International Vienna Piano Competition 2024 “Vienna Classic” takes place at the Ehrbar Saal in Vienna (Vienna's second oldest concert hall, where Brahms, Bruckner, Schönberg, Reger, and Bartok have performed among others) from July 20 to July 21, 2024. The competition is open to pianists of all ages and nationalities (see categories).
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The jury will consist of renowned pianists and professors of music universities from the USA and Europe (see jury).
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The finalists of the piano competition will perform at Musikverein Wien (Magna Auditorium/Gläserner Saal) and receive cash prizes (total: 10,000€).
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Submit your application now and be part of the Vienna Piano Summer Festival!
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© C. Stadler /
© Wolf-Dieter Wagner
THE JURY
Jovanka Banjac (AT), Professor Music at the University of Vienna (MDW) - [full Bio]
Christiane Karajev (AT), Professor at the Music University of Vienna (MDW) - [full bio]
Tim Ovens (DE), Professor at the Music University of Vienna (MDW) - [ful bio]
Eliane Reyes (BE), Professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris - [full bio]
Konstantin Semilakovs (DE/LVA), Professor at the Music University of Vienna-[full bio]
Jeffrey Swann (USA), Professor at New York University-[full bio]
RULES & REGULATIONS
Category 1:4-6 years (born between July 22, 2017-July 21, 2020)
Category 2:7-9 years (born between July 22, 2014-July 21, 2017)
Category 3:10-12 years (born between July 22, 2011-July 21, 2014)
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Category 4:13-15 years (born between July 22, 2008-July 21, 2011)
Category 5:16-19 years (born between July 22, 2004-July 21, 2008)
Category 6:20-24 years (born between July 22, 1999-July 21, 2004)
Category 7:25-29 years (born between July 22, 1994-July 21, 1999)
Category 8:30 and above (born before July 22, 1994)
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Round 1: The selection of the first round takes place by video link. You can choose up to three pieces (free choice), maximum duration 15 min. The deadline for uploading your videos is Jan 15, 2024,23:59 CET. The results will be available by February 15 2024.
Round 2: The second round takes place at Ehrbar Saal Wien. The programs must include a piece of Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven ("Vienna Classic", one movement is enough). The other piece(s) is (are) free of choice. The program length should not exceed 5 Min for categories 1 and 2, 10 Min for categories 3-4 and, 15 Min for categories 5-8. Round 2 will take place on July 20, 2024 for categories 1-5 and on July 21st for categories 6-8.
Round 3: The winner of each category will perform their program of the second round at the famous Wiener Musikverein (Magna Auditorium/Gläserner Saal) in the evening of July 22, 2024. Additional prizes will be awarded in the third round (concerts, recording).
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PRIZES
→ 10.000 Euros in cash prizes will be awarded 💰💰💰
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→ The first three of each group of the 2nd round of the piano competition will receive cash prizes 💵
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→ The first of each group will perform at the famous Musikverein Wien on July 22nd 2024 🎹🎶
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→ Additional prizes will be awarded (concert in Vienna in the season 24/25, professional recording).
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→ Everybody will receive a certificate of participation with their points
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→ Personalized feedback from the first round on
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APPLICATION
"To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable."
Ludwig van Beethoven
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How many people will be invited to the second round?A maximum 60-70 people will be invited to the second round.
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When will I know the result?The result of the first round will be published by February 15th. The result of the second round will be published on the day of the competition.
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Do you offer accommodation?We do not offer accommodation in Vienna, but we encourage you to book in advance an accommodation according to your budget through Airbnb or booking.
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Will the competition be recorded?Yes, the second and the third round will be recorded and streamed.
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How do I create video links?Upload your videos on youtube (you can make them private or public) and put the link in the form. You can also use other platforms as vimeo.
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How much is the application fee?The application fee is 80€ and can be paid directly after filling out the application form.
THE JURY
Jovanka Banjac (AT), Professor at the Music University of Vienna (MDW)
Jovanka Banjac was born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, where her talent for piano was discovered at a very early age. After finishing the Music special school in Belgrade, she studied piano in Florence with Oratio Frugoni, who was at the time the assistant of Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli at the Rosary College, Graduate School of Fine Arts. In 1974, she graduated from the Conservatory Luigi Cherubini in Florence with the highest grade in piano.
She moved to Vienna to continue her studies with Professor Dieter Weber at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she graduated with distinction in concert piano performance in 1978. While still studying, she won first prize at the Elena Rombro-Stepanow piano competition organized by the University. She was awarded a scholarship as a prize and, in subsequent years, also a scholarship from the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. At Salzburg's Mozarteum, she graduated with her Master's degree. Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who was still teaching at the Mozarteum at the time, provided her with guidance and certified her thesis on Mozart's piano sonatas.
Jovanka Banjac has been teaching piano at various levels for many years. Since 1995, she has been a piano lecturer at the Institute for Composition, Music Theory, and Electroacoustic at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.
Jovanka Banjac has written and published various pedagogical works: Notentrainer / Haas Musikverlag Cologne; Children's Songs and Finger Dances, and Christmas Carols for one piano-four hands (Doblinger-Vienna).
She has recorded several CDs with works by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Liszt, Scriabin, Czerny, Crammer, Tajcevic and others. She played as a soloist at the opening of the San Lorenzo Festival in Florence in 1974 and in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna in 1976.
Jovanka Banjac has recorded all of Mozart's Piano Sonatas and is still active in performing his complete piano works, which can be found on YouTube.
Currently, she delivers master classes on a regular basis and is providing guidance to the winners of the Elevato Piano competition.
She sees her mission and task among other things as supporting and helping young aspiring pianists with her advice and knowledge, as well as organizing the opportunities to present them to a wider audience.
Christiane Karajev (AT), Professor at the Music University of Vienna (MDW).
60 years at the piano - 40 years of teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.
Christiane Karajeva completed her studies at the Vienna Academy of Music and at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.
Her most important teachers included Richard Hauser, Dieter Weber, Lev Naumov and Wilhelm Kempf. At the age of seventeen, she was the youngest prizewinner at the International Beethoven Competition. She performed mainly as a soloist in the most important concert halls in Vienna and traveled to Central Europe, Canada, Mexico, South Korea and the Middle East.
As the pianist of the Beethoven Trio Vienna, she performed successfully with the ensemble in Europe, the USA and Japan until 1999. Numerous CDs have been recorded under the Camerata label.
She regularly leads masterclasses in Austria, Korea and Japan and has worked as a mobile teacher in the international Erasmus program, including in Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, Poland and Canada.
In 2017, she held master classes and solo recitals in Iran for the first time.
Her first solo CD with works by Scriabin and Schubert was released by Gramola in 2017, followed by another CD in 2020 with works by Berg, Medtner, Janacek and Schubert.
Tim Ovens (DE), Professor at the Music University of Vienna (MDW
Again and again the press praises the finely nuanced, internalized playing of the German pianist Tim Ovens. His touch, his pronounced sense of sense of sound, the ability to give life and tension to the softest note as well as the in short - to let the music become language,
These qualities make Tim Ovens' concerts a special experience. Tim Ovens lives in Hanover and Vienna. Born in Flensburg, he studied in the soloist and master classes of Hans Leygraf, Karl Engel, Kurt Bauer and Paul Badura-Skoda.
From 1987 to 1988, Tim Ovens lived in China, where he studied Asian culture intensively. In Beijing, Shanghai and other cities he gave numerous solo recitals, orchestral concerts and chamber music recitals. The most important music academies in China invited him to give piano master classes and lectures.
In the course of his extensive concert career, Ovens has worked with a number of orchestras. He has played for various radio stations as well as national and international television stations. He has been a guest at major music festivals - at the "Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival", the "Dresden Music Festival", the "Ludwigsburg
Schlossfestspiele", the "Kissinger Sommer" and others. He has also made numerous CD recordings as a soloist and chamber music partner (Ars Musici, Warner Music, CordAria, Polygram Far East and others).
In recent years, international concert tours have taken him not only to European countries, including Japan, South America and repeatedly to China.
From 1989 to 2009, Tim Ovens taught at the Hanover University of Music and Drama. Since 2009, he has been Professor of Piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He is a visiting professor at the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In the year 2010 he founded the Vienna Academy of Music in China, of which he is artistic director.
He is also regularly invited to international music academies to give piano master classes (e.g. Poland, Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Japan ...).
Tim Ovens' repertoire is wide-ranging and encompasses all areas of piano music. Within this spectrum, the focus is on piano music by Schubert, Schumann, Debussy and John Cage. The examination of the music of the 20th and 21st century music in its various forms is a constant challenge for Tim Ovens and an important part of his musical work.
In addition to his solo performances, Ovens is also involved in chamber music and regularly performs in various ensembles.
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Eliane Reyes (BE), Professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris - [full bio]
Invited to perform on stages all over the world, Eliane Reyes captivates with her musical personality, constantly daring to dig new furrows, while always retaining that subtle touch that is her identity.
Initially trained by her mother, she gave her first recital at the age of 5 and was awarded the Prix César Franck the same year.
Her encounters with Gyorgy Cziffra at the age of ten, who made her the youngest laureate of his foundation in Senlis, and with Martha Argerich at the age of 14, marked a decisive stage in her life as a pianist.
She studied at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, then at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth with Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, and at the Paris Conservatoire under Brigitte Engerer and Jacques Rouvier in the 3rd cycle.
Thanks to support from the Rheinold Blüthner, Spes, Nany Philipppart, Sir Georg Solti and Vocatio foundations, she takes part in masterclasses with Lazar Berman, Vitali Margulis, Murray Perahia, Menahem Pressler and Gyorgy Sebök. She was also presented in recital in Berlin and Switzerland by Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Eliane Reyes has been nominated three times for the "International Classical Music Awards", and in 2010 was awarded Belgium's "Octaves" for lifetime achievement in music.
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In 2017, Eliane Reyes had the privilege of playing with the Koch Trio before the Imperial Family of Japan during the state visit of H.R.H. The Grand Duke of Luxembourg to the Akasaka Palace, having previously performed before Simone Veil at the European Parliament in Luxembourg.
In 2020, Vahan Mardirossian invited her to play Chopin's Second Concerto with the Orchester Royal de Chambre de Wallonie.
In 2021-22, she released several discs, with Sylvia Huang for Fuga Libera, with Dominique Cornil and with Aleksandr Khramouchin for Azur Classical, a Paul Paray solo disc and a solo Cd with Dirk Brosse. Her discography has won numerous awards, including "Pianiste maestro" in "Pianiste" magazine, "Ring" in Classic info, "Joker" in Crescendo, 5 Diapason, "supersonic" in Pizzicato. She was awarded "la clé d'or" by Resmusica for her solo recording of A.Tansman's 24 intermezzi, and twice graced the cover of "Pianist" magazine in the Netherlands.
Konstantin Semilakovs (LTU), Professor at the Music University of Vienna
Konstantin Semilakovs, born 1984 in Riga, Latvia, is a classical pianist, piano professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and first prize winner of the International Piano Competition in Porto. He is particularly interested in studying the phenomenon of color perception in the classical piano repertoire as well as in synaesthetic performance of the music of 19th and 20th centuries.
Konstantin Semilakovs has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at the International Beethoven Festival Bonn, the Braunschweig Classix Festival, and at the music festivals of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Semilakovs was awarded the Classical Music Prize of WDR Radio and the City of Münster, the Hans Sikorski Memorial Award, and the Sponsorship Award of the Ingolstadt Concert Association.
Semilakovs studied with Wolfgang Manz at the University of Music in Nuremberg and with Michael Wladkowski at the École Normale de Musique Alfred Cortot in Paris.
Preceding the professorship in Vienna, he taught at the Universities of Music in Salzburg, Nuremberg and Regensburg.
Jeffrey Swann (USA), Professor at New York University
Jeffrey Swann enjoys an international performing career which has taken him throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia. He won first prize in the Dino Ciani Competition sponsored by La Scala in Milan, a gold medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, and top honors at the Warsaw Chopin, Van Cliburn, Vianna da Motta and Montreal Competitions, as well as the Young Concert Artists auditions in New York City. His large and varied repertoire includes more than 60 concertos as well as solo works ranging from Bach to Boulez.
In addition to presenting lecture/recitals worldwide, Mr. Swann has performed with the symphonies of Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Indiana, Dallas, Saint Louis, Houston, Baltimore, San Antonio, New Jersey, Louisville, New Orleans, Honolulu and Minneapolis; and in Europe with the orchestras of Rotterdam, The Hague, Belgian National and Radio, Warsaw Philharmonic, La Scala, Santa Cecilia, RAI Turin and Rome, Czech Philharmonic, Radio France de Montpellier and the London Philharmonia, among many others. The conductors with whom he has performed include Zdenek Macal, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marek Janowski, Kazimirz Kord, Myung-Whun Chung, Roberto Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti and Leonard Slatkin. In addition, he continues to lecture regularly at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany, and at Wagner Societies in the United States and Italy. Mr. Swann has also served as a judge at many competitions, most recently the Premio Venezia in Venice, Italy.
A native of Northern Arizona, Jeffrey Swann studied with Alexander Uninsky at Southern Methodist University and with Beveridge Webster and Adele Marcus at The Juilliard School, where he received his B.M., M.M. and D.M.A. Degrees. Mr. Swann can be heard on Ars Polona, Deutsche-Gramophon, RCA-Italy, Replica, Fonit-Cetra, Music & Arts, and Agora recordings. His CD, "The Virtuoso Liszt" (Music & Arts) won the Liszt Society's Grand Prix, and his first volume of the Complete Beethoven Sonatas (Agorá) was chosen one of the Best of the Year by Fanfare magazine. His most recent release features works for piano and orchestra by Chopin with the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano. Since 2007, Jeffrey Swann has been the Music Director of the Dino Ciani Festival & Academy in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, since 2008 the Adel Artist-in-Residence at Northern Arizona University, and since 2013 the Artistic Director of the Scuola Normale Concert Series in Pisa, Italy. Other teaching experience includes the International Keyboard Institute at Mannes College of Music (2002-Present), Master Classes at Texas Christian University, University of Minnesota, Imola Academy (Italy), University of Virginia, San Diego State University, Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, University of Tennessee, Arizona Piano Teachers' Federation, University of Iowa, and Stanford University, as well as Piano Master Courses in Milan, Udine, La Spezia, and Weimar.