Concours Musical International de Montréal (CMIM) Moves Its Competition Online
In Tune with the Times: For the first time in its 19-year history, the Concours Musical International de Montréal (CMIM) moves its competition online in performances to be made available for streaming worldwide.
Twenty-six semi-finalists taking part in CMIM’s 19th Piano Competition (April 26 – May 14) will perform from 15 different concert halls in their home countries according to strict guidelines to retain the integrity of the competition.
The triennial piano edition of the Concours Musical International de Montréal (CMIM) will return this year after a 2020 postponement due to COVID-19 in a new online format that has brought both challenges and opportunities to semi-finalists and audiences. Classical Post will be following the proceedings, meeting the artists taking part in the competition and sharing some favorite performances along the way.
Normally drawing an audience of 6,000 to Montréal’s Salle Bourgie and Maison symphonique, the CMIM will this year be made available to audiences worldwide on CMIM’s website and social media platforms. “Modern technology and the generous support of our loyal partners will allow us to realize an entirely online competition where emotion is guaranteed to transcend the screen,” says CMIM Executive and Artistic Director Christiane LeBlanc. “Even if we are not in person, you will feel very close to each step of the competition, to each competitor, I promise.”
Founded in 2002, the CMIM aims to further the development of promising young singers, violinists, and pianists, while making classical music accessible to the greatest possible number of people. The CMIM is held annually and features three disciplines (piano, voice, and violin) in a three-year rotation. Since its first edition dedicated to Voice in 2002, 3,700 hopefuls have entered the Competition, and close to 500 have been welcomed to perform in Montreal.
Among the 26 competitors of this year’s piano competition – aged 21-30 – are three American pianists. The “gifted virtuoso” (San Francisco Chronicle) Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner of California has performed for former President Barack Obama at the White House and the Kennedy Center. For CMIM, he will perform works by Monk, Bach, Rachmaninov and Beethoven. Praised by the Washington Post as “prodigiously gifted,” Arizona’s Anna Han will perform works by Beethoven, Faure, Bartók and Schumann. Los Angeles native Stephanie Tang – a graduate of the Colburn Conservatory and current graduate student at Yale School of Music – performs Adams, Debussy, Beethoven and Scriabin in her semi-final recital.
Other semifinalists include Kevin Ahfat and Alice Burla of Canada; Ying Li, Zhu Wang and Jiacheng Xiong of China; Marcel Tadokoro and Dimitri Malignan of France; Francesco Granata of Italy; Yoichiro Chiba and Ken Nakasako of Japan; Krysztof Ksiazek of Poland; Cristian Sandrin of Romania; Andrei Iliushkin, Dmitry Sin and Alexey Trushechkin of Russia; Su Yeon Kim, Ji-Hyang Gwak, Yeontaek Oh, Chaeyoung Park, Kyoungsun Park, Suah Ye and Joon Yoon of South Korea, and Tamila Salimdjanova of Uzbekistan. All will compete for over $230,000 in prizes and awards.
In addition to a grand prize of $30,000 from the city of Montréal and the $50,000 Joseph Rouleau Career Development Grant offered by the Azrieli Foundation, the first prize winner will also be offered a concert tour in three North American cities sponsored by Sarah Beauchamp, an artist residency at Canada’s Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, a concerto performance with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and a solo album recording on the Steinway & Sons label with a launch event at Steinway Hall in New York City.
In another first, CMIM will invite the public to vote for the recipient of the $5,000 ICI Musique People’s Choice Award. So, the stakes could not be higher for these ambitious young musicians.
The jury for the CMIM will be made up of nine international judges overseen by Zarin Mehta including pianists Arnaldo Cohen, Till Fellner, Mari Kodama, Hélène Mercier, Charles Richard-Hamelin; impresario Martin Engstroem, recording industry veteran Costa Pilavachi, pianist and pedagogue Rena Shereshevskaya and renowned mentor and manager Susan Wadsworth.
Moving a competition online brings myriad logistical challenges. To maintain integrity and consistency among recordings, CMIM secured fifteen concert halls around the world in which the artists will perform on a Steinway & Sons instrument. Recording crews will abide by the same set of rules regarding microphone and camera placement, and each recital will be recorded in one take to replicate, as close as possible, the environment of the competition stage.
The 45-minute semifinal recitals will be webcast for the public on CMIM’s website and social media platforms over nine sessions (three recitals per session) premiering April 26-29 at 10am and 2pm ET and April 30 at 10am ET and available for streaming on-demand thereafter. Among their other selections, performers must choose at least one work by J.S. Bach and three of Twenty-four Preludes by Juno Award-winning Canadian composer John Burge.
Eight finalists will be announced on Friday, April 30 at 2pm ET. Those finalists will return to perform a 60-minute recital streamed over four sessions premiering May 10-13 at 10am ET. The announcement of the final results and closing ceremony will occur on Friday, May 14th at 10am ET.