Warsaw (AFP)
The prestigious Chopin international piano competition to be held in the Polish capital in the autumn has been postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic, the organizers announced on Monday.
"Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the eighteenth edition of the Chopin Competition has been postponed for one year. The competition will take place from October 2 to 23, 2021 at the Warsaw Philharmonic," according to the press release published on the quinquennial competition website.
"The list of pianists admitted to the eliminatory test will not change and the tickets purchased for the auditions of the competition remain valid," said the organizers.
This year, 164 out of 500 pianists who have applied have been selected to participate in the elimination round.
The music of Chopin (1810-1849), a great Franco-Polish composer and pianist of the romantic period, has for several decades attracted pianists from Asia, Japanese and Chinese in particular.
This year, the most numerous candidates come from China, Japan, South Korea, and Poland. In total more than thirty countries are represented.
Eighty of them will be selected to participate in the first stage of the competition.
The previous edition of the competition was won by the South Korean Seong-Jin Cho.
The Chopin Competition, launched in 1927, often marked an important stage in the career of several great pianists crowned in Warsaw, including the Italian Maurizio Pollini (1960), the Argentinian Martha Argerich (1965), the Pole Krystian Zimerman (1975 ) or the Chinese Yundi Li (2000).
© 2020 AFP