Vicky Juo and Philip Karmanov shared winners of the Eerste Pianoconcours van de Lage Landen
left to right: Martin Kaptein, Vicky Juo, Philip Karmanov, Jo Sporck
It is with great pleasure that we look back on our piano competition, which was organized on the occasion of Jo Sporck's 70th birthday. It was preceded by a long period of organization, which became all the more challenging, because two candidates withdrew from the competition at the last minute.
The first of the remaining three participants, Martin Kaptein, had traveled to Tilburg from his hometown in Italy especially for this competition. When he arrived on Sunday October 15th and sat down at the piano at 11 a.m., the tension was gone: the hall of the Cenakel was well filled and Martin’s performance showed high quality and intense
expression.
This created high expectations among the audience regarding the performances of the other two candidates. Vicky Juo, born in Taiwan, had a nicely balanced programme and
played her pieces with passion and virtuoso, with which she captured the hearts of the audience. The level she reached in her playing seemed unmatchable. But after the lunch break, the youngest participant, Philip Karmanov, rivaled her in terms of virtuosity with impressive and challenging piano playing.
Given the high level of the candidates, the international jury chaired by Han Bosch had quite a difficult task to appoint the prize winners. This was also evident from the results:
Vicky Juo and Philip Karmanov were the joint winners of the Eerste Pianoconcours van de Lage Landen. Because of the dramatic virtuosity that the 18-year-old Karmanov displayed during the performance of Susyphus Opus 136, he received from the composer the Jo Sporck Prize.
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