The Chopin International Piano Competition – which has offered a vast global audience of online viewers 15 days of inspiring performances from some remarkably gifted young pianists – has reached its conclusion.

Canadian pianist Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu has been named the First Prize winner. The 2nd Prize was shared by Alexander Gadjiev (Italy/Slovenia), and Kyohei Sorita (from Japan), while 3rd Prize was awarded to Martin Garcia Garcia of Spain. 

Gadjiev also received the Krystian Zimerman Prize for the best performance of a sonata, and Garcia Garcia the Warsaw Philharmonic Prize for the best performance of a concerto. The Polish Radio Prize for the best performance of mazurkas went to Jakub Kuszlik of Poland. The winners emerged from 87 participants from 17 countries who featured in the competition, 12 of whom were selected for the final round where where they could play their choice of Chopin concerto.

Gramophone, as a media partner of the competition, has been publishing a daily blog by our critic Jed Distler exploring and analysing the competitors and their performances. It's proved a very popular feature, and you can catch up with it here. Among his praise for the eventual winner, Jed described Liu as a pianist 'evoking Shura Cherkassky and Georges Cziffra in a single breath', and singled out a 'vividly detailed and amazingly insouciant "La ci darem" Variations'.

All the performances from the competition itself are available to watch here while you can enjoy Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu's performance in the final round below.