First woman in 45 years wins Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw

Martin Cullingford
Saturday, October 23, 2010

The results of the 16th International Fryderyck Chopin Competition in Warsaw have been announced.

First Prize was awarded to 25-year-old Russian Yulianna Avdeeva. She is the first female winner of the First Prize in 45 years, since Martha Argerich won in 1965. Avdeeva receives 30,000 Euros and two dates with the New York Philharmonic. Equal Second Prize was awarded to Russian-Lithuanian Lukas Geniušas (20) and Ingolf Wunder (25) of Austria. Third Prize went to 19-year-old Russian Daniil Trifonov, Fourth Prize to Bulgarian Evgeni Bozhanov (26) and Fifth Prize to François Dumont (25) of France. The 12-strong Jury, which included Martha Argerich, Nelson Freire, Fou Ts'ong and Bella Davidovich, did not award a Sixth Prize.

Further additional prizes were also given: the Mazurka Prize to Daniil Trifonov, the Sonata Prize to Yulianna Avdeeva, the Concerto Prize and Polonaise-Fantaisie Prize to Ingolf Wunder and the Polonaise Prize to Lukas Geniušas.

The Competition's website had revealed Ingolf Wunder as the clear audience favourite. However, Avdeeva has been highly praised for her musicianship and Jury member Martha Argerich said she was “extremely happy” about her win.

A bilingual Polish-English daily paper, the Chopin Express, was distributed throughout Warsaw for the duration of the event with daily reports from each competition stage as well as a free CD of each day's most notable performances.

All 23 editions of the paper are available online at http://konkurs.chopin.pl/en/edition/xvi/competition/magazine. Gramophone was the exclusive UK media partner of the Competition, with live blog updates from its special correspondent who was based in Warsaw for the duration of the Competition.

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