Concours internationaux de la Ville de Paris

Nationality of the candidates in competition
37 contestants - 18 countries

Belarus (1) - Bulgaria (1) - Chile (1) - China (2) - Germany (4) - Georgia, 1 - Finland (1) - France (3) - Greece (1) - Indonesia (1) - Italy (1) - Japan (5) - Netherlands (2) - Russia (4) - Taiwan (1) - United Kingdom (2) - United States (3) - Ukraine (1) - Yougoslavia (2).

Jury 2000 : Yvonne LORIOD-MESSIAEN - France, Chairman
Håkon Austbø – Netherlands, Maria-Elena Barrientos – Spain, George Benjamin – United Kingdom, Michel Béroff – France, Alain Louvier – France, Roger Muraro – France, Marcello Panni – Monaco, Pierre Réach – France, Thomas Daniel Schlee – Germany, Takahiro Sonoda – Japan

Grand Prize of the City of Paris : Markus Bellheim (Germany)

2nd Grand Prize : Jean Dubé (France)

3rd Prize : OOÏ Hiroaki (Japan)

4th Prize : non-adjudged

Prix Yvonne Loriod : Jean Dubé

Prize for the best performance of Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus by Olivier Messiaen given by the Editions Durand : Jean Dubé

Prize for the best performance of Catalogue d'oiseaux by Olivier Messiaen given by the Editions Leduc : Markus Bellheim

Prize for the best performance of Oiseaux exotiques by Olivier Messiaen given by the Editions Universal : Markus Bellheim

Prize for the best performance of Instants díun opéra de Pékin by Qigang Chen, given by the Foundation Olivier Messiaen : Alison Farr (United-Kingdom)

Prize for the most promising performer, given by the SACEM : Andrei Soudelski (Russia)

Special mention, especially for the performance of the Cinq Pièces, op. 23, díArnold Schönberg : XIE Ya-ou (China)

Mentions : MASUNAGA Remi (Japan) Alfonso Alberti (Italy).

Biographies

Markus Bellheim (Germany) was born in 1973 in Hamburg. He starts of musical education in 1978, beginning with piano lessons, continuing with organ and clarinet.
1988, guest-student at the Musikhochshule Hannover and then at the Musikhochshule Würzburg class of piano with Professor E. Appel.
1994-96, studies lied accompaniment with Professor Ch. Spencer at the Musikhochshule Frankfurt.
1997 Scholarship for piano of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes.
1998, piano exam, with distinction – Scholarship of the Cité international Des Arts to live in Paris for 8 months.
1999, Culture –prize of the city of Würzburg.
Markus Bellheim participated in master classes with Igor Shukor, Berud Glemser and Klaus hellwig.
He is a teacher for piano and lied accompaniment at the Musikhochshule Würzburg
Extended concert activity, recording for broadcast, CD and TV

Jean Dubé (France) give his first concert at 5 years old and has been awarded by the Concours “Jeunes prodiges à Paris” with the first prize in 1991. He was 14 when he received the 1st prize of piano and the Prize Monique de la Bruchollerie in the Conservatoire de Paris, then at 18 the 1st prize of Music Chamber in the Geneva Conservatory, in the Guy-Michel Caillat Class. He studies with Jacques Rouvier and with Lev Naoumov, Jacqueline Robin, Elena Filonova, and participated in master class with Dimitri Bashkirov, Oxana Yablonskaya, Rudolf Buchbinder. In 1998, He win the 1st prize of the Bucarest Competition and in 1999 the 2nd prize of the Takasaki competition.
In 2000 he won the Yvonne Lefébure scholarship of the Concours international du XXème siècle d’Orléans so he can work one complete year with John O’Connor in the Royal Academy of Music of Dublin.

(Japan) Hiroaki Ooï was born in Kyoto (Japan) and majored at the electronics faculty of Kyoto University before moving to Berne (Switzerland) where he has been living since. In Berne he studied the piano, harpsichord and organ thanks to scholarships granted by both the Swiss and the Japanese Government. At the same time he participated in numerous festivals accompanied by orchestras and ensembles from Europe and the Far East. He won prizes at several international competitions such as the "Gaudeamus" (Rotterdam, 1996) and "Olivier Messiaen" (Paris, 2000). Moreover, many an award has crowned his ambitious performances, from Boulez' cycle with 3 Sonatas and 2 Structures, to the first night in Japan of Xenakis Erikhthon, Stochkausen's Klavierstücke XV "Synthi-Fou" and XVI, to Ligeti's 19 Etudes including "No. 14A" for player-piano. In 2002 Ooï commemorated Xenakis' 80th anniversary at "La Biennale di Venezia" with 5 piano (Six chansons, Herma, Evryali, Mists, à r.) and 2 harpsichord pieces (Khoaï, Naama), a programme that he repeated and extended by the inclusion of Eonta in Tokyo and Kyoto. In late summer he premièred Gmeeoorh for organ in Japan. His artistic mission consists, however, mainly in introducing works by young Asian composers.

Alison Farr (United-kingdom) is in the second year at the royal Academy of Music where she studies with Christopher Elton. She was born in 1980 and was a student of Hilary Coates at Wells Cathedral School from 1993-1998. She received an award from the Michael James Trust and won many competitions including the Audi Junior Musician 1994, the UK stage of the European Music for the Youth Prize and the piano section of the BBC Young Musicians 98. In 1998 Alison was awarded a bursary by Dartington International Summer School for master class with Joanna MacGregor. Alison was also awarded the Blakiston prize for piano at the end of her first year at the academy.
During the past year Alison has been soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Concert orchestra at Dorking Halls and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the Winter Garden, Bournemouth. She also undertook a three weeks concert tour of the Gulf State with the BBC Young Musician Finalists and has given numerous recitals at festivals and music clubs throughout Britain.
In June 1999 Alison gave the Word Premiere of Eric Sweeney’s Sonata for Piano at the Beaminster Art Festival.
Recent concert appearances have included recitals at Weymouth Music Club and the Bournemount Chamber Music Society, and performances of Mozart’s Concerto n°24 with the dorset Chamber Orchestra and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto for the National Trust in Blandford.

(China) Pianist XIE Ya-ou, born in southwestern China, began learning the piano in early childhood from her mother. At the age of eleven, she matriculated into the School of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Subsequently, she studied both piano and conducting in Shanghai.
In Europe, Ms. Xie has studied with Wan-Ing Ong in Stuttgart, Hans Leygraf, Pascal Devoyon in Berlin and Pierre-Laurent Aimard in Paris. Important stimuli in Ms. Xie’s artistic development have been her participation in master classes given by Claude Helffer, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, William Grant Naboré, Alicia de Larrocha, Charles Rosen, György Sebók and George Crumb, as well as her study of New Music with Gunilde Cramer.
The diverse musical interests of Ms. Xie are revealed by her extensive familiarity with not only the classical repertory, but of twentieth-century music as well.
She won numerous prizes and was specially awarded for the compositions of Luciano Berio (Kranischsteiner Musikpreis of International Musikinstitut Darmstadt 1996), Arnold Schönberg (Mention Special at Concours Olivier Messiaen 2000 in Paris), Franz Liszt (Liszt Preis at the 17th Concorso Valsesia Musica 2001 in Italy), José Luis Turina (Premio Música Contemporánea at the 44th Concorso Premio Jaén 2002 in Spain) and Claude Debussy (Prize for the best intepreter of French music at the 5th Concours International Morocco 2002, Meknès).
At both the Shanghai and Beijing Conservatory, in 1997, 1999 and 2001 respectively, she delivered lecture-recitals on the interpretation of new music for the piano. Since 1998, she has served regularly as a guest pianist with the Chamber Ensemble New Music Berlin. Today, Ms. Xie lives as Freeland musician in Berlin. Concert engagements have led this young artist to, among other places, Japan, Belgium, French, Poland, Spain and Switzerland.
2004 : Concours International de Piano XXè Siècle d'Orléans, she won three of the main prizes:
- Prix XXè siècle SACEM, for the best interpreter of music written after 1950
- Prix XXè siècle Albert Roussel, for the best interpretation of a piece by Albert Roussel
- Prix XXè siècle des étudiants de l'Ecole Nationale de Musique d‚Orléans, voted by a special jury consisted of 20 music students for their favorite pianist

Concours Olivier Messiaen 2003 - 21 contestants - 12 countries

Germany, 2 - China, 2 - Korea 3 - United States, 1 - France, 1 - Grece, 1 - Italy, 2 - Japan, 5 - New Zelande, 1 - Netherlands, 1 - Georgia, 1 - Russia, 1 - Taiwan, 1.

Jury 2003 : Michel BÉROFF - France, Chairmann
Idil BIRET - Turkey, Suzanne CHEETHAM-PILLINGER - United-Kingdom, Ivan FEDELE - Italy, Peter HILL - United-Kingdom, Jun KANNO - Japon, Noël LEE - United States , Yvonne LORIOD-MESSIAEN - France, Roger MURARO - France.

Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris: Chuan QIN (China)

Second Grand Prize: Prodromos SYMEONIDIS (Grece)
The Second Grand Prize is given by the Acacémie des Beaux-Arts de l'Institut de France.

Third Prize: Hue-Am PARK (Korea)

Fourth Prize: Feodor AMIROV (Russia)

The Yvonne Loriod Prize, awarded to the contestant whose performance is the most faithful to the spirit of Olivier Messiaen's music: Prodromos SYMEONIDIS (Grece)

Prize donated by Editions Durand, for the best performance of Réveil des oiseaux: Prodromos SYMEONIDIS (Grece)

Prize donated by Editions Leduc, for the best performance of one or several pieces from Catalogue d'Oiseaux and from Petites esquisses d’oiseaux: Chuan QIN (China)

Fondation Olivier Messiaen Prize, for the best performance of Ivan Fedele’s work commissioned for the contest: Feodor AMIROV (Russie)

Prize donated by Editions Universal, for the best performance of Cantéyodjâya: Prodromos SYMEONIDIS (Grece)

Prize donated by the Fondation André Boucourechliev, for the best performance of Archipel 4 : Hue-Am PARK (Korea)

Prize for the most promising contestant donated by SACEM: Hana KURASAWA (Japan)

Mentions

Remi MASUNAGA (Japan)

Xenia PESTOVA (New Zeland)

Takahiko SUZUKI (Japan)

Chuan QIN – China

Born on December 12th 1975 in Nanjing, Chuan Qin starts playing the piano at the age of five. He wins the first prizes of Maria Canals (Beijing) and Juilliard’s Gina Bachauer (New York) International Competitions, and then, in 2002, the Arthur Rubinstein (Juilliard School) and Rudolf Serkin Prizes (Oberlin Conservatory). He continues his studies at the Juilliard School under the guidance of Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, and Yoheved Kaplinsky.

– Grece

Born on March 12th 1972, he starts playing the piano at the age of 5, receiving private lessons with prof. E. Papazoglou. During his last school years he won numerous prizes in national and international mathematical competitions, like in 1989 at the 30th International Mathematical Olympiade in Western Germany (bronze medal). From 1994 to 2000 he studied Music pedagogy (piano) and piano solistic studies at the Musichochshule in Köln in the class of Prof. Karin Merle and Prof. Dr.h.c. Arbo Valdma. He achieved both Diplomas (in 1998 and 2000) with the degree "excellent". From 2001 to 2002 he made postgraduate pianistical studies at the Hanns Eisler Muzikhochschule in Berlin with Prof. Georg Sava which he also finished with an "excellent" degree. Since then he lives in Berlin. During his studies, he has taken an active part in masterclasses with Pierre Laurent Aimard, Alexandre Rabinovich and Dimitri Bashkirov, and also private lessons with Claude Helffer. In 1977, he was the prizewinner in the 7th International Chambermusic Competition Helexpo, in the Duo category. In 2002 he was an active participant in the piano workshop of the Centre Acanthes.

Hue-Am PARK – Korea

Born on August 28th 1973, he studied the organ and the piano at the University of Berlin with the Professors Heinemann and Mehne, and then at the Hochschule in Sarrebrück with the Professor A. Rothkopf. He won the following prizes : “Bach-Preis” Organ Competition in Wiesbaden, the Second Prize at the Organ Competition in Laubach, and the first Prize of the “Premi X. Montsalvatge” Piano for Contemporary Music Competition in Gerone in 2000. In 2001, he won the second prize at the Piano for French Music Competition Competition in Guérande, and the first Prize for the best interpretation at the Composition Competition “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin. Hue-Am Park received the special prize “A.Roussel” at the Contemporary piano competition of Orléans in 2002. He is prizewinner “Nicati” for contemporary music in Biel (Switzerland) in October, 2003. He is an organist at the Reformed Church in Nancy.

Feodor AMIROV – Russia

Born on August 23rd 1981, he first learnt the piano at the Central Music School of Moscow Conservatory. He currently studies at the Moscow Tchaikowsky Conservatory with Sergey Dorensky. He won several Competition prizes: International Chopin Competition in 1996, “Hope-93” Grodno Belarus Competition, International Poulenc Competition in 1999. He got a fifth prize at the fourth Hamamatsu Piano Competition in 2000, and then a third prize at the Rachmaninov Competition in Moscow in 2002.