Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian solo pianist, chamber music performer, and conductor. Born in the Soviet Union, he has held Icelandic citizenship since 1972 and has been a resident of Switzerland since 1978. Ashkenazy has collaborated with well-known orchestras and soloists. In addition, he has recorded a large repertoire of classical and romantic works. His recordings have earned him five Grammy awards and Iceland's Order of the Falcon.
The International Chopin Piano Competition, often referred to as the Chopin Competition, is a piano competition held in Warsaw, Poland. It was initiated in 1927 and has been held every five years since 1955. The competition is one of the founding members of the World Federation of International Music Competitions. It is also one of the few competitions devoted entirely to the works of a single composer, in this case, Frédéric Chopin. The competition is currently organized by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute.
Fou Ts'ong was a Chinese and British pianist who was the first pianist of his national origin to achieve international recognition. He came to prominence after winning third prize and the Polish Radio Prize for the best performance of Chopin's mazurkas in the 1955 V International Chopin Piano Competition, and remained particularly known as an interpreter of Chopin's music.
Rachel Wai-Ching Cheung is a classical pianist from Hong Kong. She has won numerous prizes and awards in Hong Kong and overseas, and performs regularly in Asia, Europe, and North America.
Atsuko Seta is a Japanese classical pianist. She is particularly successful in Poland, especially in the southwest of the country, regularly performing with the Sudeten Philharmonic Orchestra in Walbrzych and in her native Japan and in Bulgaria. Seta is living in Poland as a Honorable Citizen of Szczawno-Zdroj city. Artistic Director of Chiangmai Ginastera International Music Festival. Honorary Professor of Payap University Thailand. Honorary Chairman of Japan Ginastera Association.
Ilya Rashkovskiy is a Russian pianist.
Jinsang Lee is a South Korean classical pianist and a professor at Korea National University of Arts.
Elmar Gasanov is a Ukrainian pianist trained at the Moscow Conservatory representing Russia at international competitions. He later undertook postgraduate studies at London's Royal College of Music, as a student of Professor Vanessa Latarche. Gasanov graduated with the Master of Music degree with Distinction.
Evgeni Bozhanov is a Bulgarian pianist who trained with Evgeny Zhelyazkov at the National School of Arts "Prof. Vesselin Stoyanov" in Rousse (Bulgaria). From 2001 to 2006, he studied with Boris Bloch at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen and from 2006 he continued his studies with Georg Friedrich Schenck at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf.
Đặng Thái Sơn is a Vietnamese-Canadian classical pianist. In 1980, he won the X International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, becoming the first pianist from Asia to do so. He has received particular acclaim for the sonority and poetry in his interpretations of Chopin and the French repertoire.
Trey Lee is a Hong Kong-born cellist based in Berlin, Germany. A laureate of major international competitions, he appears as a featured soloist with orchestras and festivals all over the world. He is also a member of Canada’s award-winning piano quartet Ensemble Made in Canada. Lee is the founding artistic director of Musicus Society and has spearheaded several music festivals such as the Musicus Fest and the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival.
Ingolf Wunder is an Austrian classical pianist. In 2010, Wunder was the second prize winner at the XVI International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland. He also won special prizes for best concerto, best Polonaise-Fantasie performance, and the public prize at the competition.
Daniil Olegovich Trifonov is a Russian pianist and composer. Described by The Globe and Mail as "arguably today's leading classical virtuoso" and by The Times as "without question the most astounding pianist of our age", Trifonov's honors include a Grammy Award win in 2018 and the Gramophone Classical Music Awards' Artist of the Year Award in 2016. The New York Times has noted that "few artists have burst onto the classical music scene in recent years with the incandescence" of Trifonov. He has performed as soloist with such orchestras as the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony and the Munich Philharmonic, and has given solo recitals in such venues as Royal Festival Hall, Carnegie Hall, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Berliner Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Concertgebouw, and the Seoul Arts Center.
Éliane Reyes is a Belgian pianist who is known both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. She is also currently Professor of Piano at both the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles and the Conservatoire de Paris. In 2016, she was designated a Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, by the French government.
Rueibin Chen is a Taiwanese concert pianist, who was selected by the government in a talent search and sent to Vienna, where he obtained a concert diploma at the Conservatory. Subsequently, he received a soloist's examination award from the Hannover Hochschule für Musik and then continued his study under the Russian pianist Lazar Berman.
Ivan Yanakov is a Bulgarian-born pianist and conductor. He has performed on four continents, with a repertoire ranging from the Baroque era to contemporary.
Seong-Jin Cho is a South Korean pianist. He rose to fame within South Korea and the international classical music world in 2015 after winning the XVII International Chopin Piano Competition, becoming the first pianist from his country to do so.
Vladimir Leonidovich Sverdlov-Ashkenazy is a Russian pianist and composer.
The XII International Chopin Piano Competition was held from 1 to 20 October 1990 in Warsaw. For the first time in the history of the competition, the first prize was not awarded.
Lukáš Vondráček is a Czech pianist. Noted by The Chicago Tribune for his "considerable tenderness of tone" and "expressive impact" and by The Washington Post for his "astonishing delicacy", Vondráček won the first prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2016, the first Czech musician to do so.
