The Award Presentation Ceremony of The 13th Hong Kong (Asia) Piano Open Competition was held on 18th February 2005, at Concert Hall of Hong Kong City Hall. It was organized by Hong Kong Piano Music Association, in association with Tom Lee Music Foundation and sponsored by Tom Lee Music Co., Limited.

With preliminary stage started in January 2005, the competition had attracted over record-high 5000 participants competing in 64 classes. It was quite a large scale, as over 60% of them came from mainland China and other Asian countries.

Among the participants, many of them were music student - either from local university music department or professional music institutes in mainland China. On the other hand, there were also very young players. It therefore revealed the competition had aroused the attention of multifarious piano music-lovers. Mr. Frank Lee, the chairman of Tom Lee Music Foundation, said, "We intended to provide a great variety of classes participants for to opt for their favorite style in order to encourage piano players to widen their horizon."

This year, the competition committee had invited Dame Fanny Waterman to be the jury chairman. Dame Fanny Waterman was the founder of "The Leeds International Piano Competition" and also one of the honorable judges in "2005 Warsaw International Competition". She had thus accumulated numerous experiences in international contests. She regarded Hong Kong (Asia) Piano Open Competition as successful and highly proficient. Amazed that some players had even delivered international-class performance, Dame Fanny Waterman had invited Nogi Noriya - the champion of Recital Open class, to join The Leeds International Piano Competition 2005.

Mr Choi Sown Le, the art director of the competition and the Chairman of Hong Kong Piano Music Association, highly appraised the jurors' sincerity and dedication. "Every juror fully committed himself/herself in judging every single class, regardless of levels," said Mr Choi, "each juror also gave back sufficient and constructive comment to the participants which is very valuable for participants' self-improvement."

Dame Fanny Waterman said that Mr. Choi and she had experienced a great challenge in Beijing when they both judged in the preliminary stage of Recital Open Class. Each participant was obliged to perform a 45-minute program and they used up 3 days to listen carefully to select the finalists! What a physical challenge!

Three winning stories

15-year-old Japanese boy winning Piano Recital (Open Class)
The 15-year-old Japanese Nogi Noriya, coming from Beijing, won the championship of Recital Open Class. Started playing the piano at 4, Nogi had previously participated in plenty of local and international competition. Within 45-minutes, Nogi needed to perform 6 pieces, with a combination of different period and style, to name but a few, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern. "I could experience a professional competition here", said Nogi, "my performance was relatively stable so I guess it is the main reason that I won."

According to comments to Nogi given by the Chief Jury Dame Fanny Waterman, "I used four criteria to select the winner of the competition. Number one, it's 'beauty of tone' - whether the player could make good use of the piano to create different sound;"

"Second, I would like to see whether the player possesses "music integrity" - that is, the capability to use all the clues in every bar to represent what the composers' original thoughts."

"Third, it's 'vitality of rhythm'. Knowing that rhythm of every musical piece is lively and it never develops in the same direction, musicians must express themselves according to different movements of the music."

"Last, it's the magic of charisma ...the passion for music! It's something very abstract but Nogi indeed drew our attention while he's playing. And of course he outstood from others based on the other three mentioned criteria so he won the championship."

Double-Triple twins
Chan Ka-man and Kwok Sin-yu were so busy rushing up and down the stage to receive 3 different medal cups in Duet class. Why? They attained championship in all duet classes (junior, intermediate and advanced)! Duet performance requires coherence of 2 players. How did they make it? Half a year ago, Ka-man and Sin-yu chose the pieces and started to practice together. They both began their piano lessons five years ago and were the fellow students of their teacher, Mr. Yau. That might be the reason why Ka-man and Sin-yu had similar style and performance level. What's more, they indeed are good classmates studying in the same school so they had already developed a good sense of cooperativeness!

Their piano teacher, Mr. Yau, said, "Ka-man and Sin-yu had good musical touch; they understand deeply the structure and implication of the pieces. In addition, they echo each other well to deliver the music in a coherent and stylish way." In additional, Ka-man and Sin-yu also won in Chinese Composition Intermediate Classes.

A Waltz Beginner
You can't just believe that an 8-year-old boy outstood from other mature players to become the winner of Chopin Waltz class! Aristo Sham Ching-to actually just received the winning trophy of The 6th Chopin International Competition (primary four - primary six class) in January 2005. Attaining the championship this time gave even greater impact on Aristo's life of music- as he won from other players regardless of age! What's more, Aristo outperformed and won in Improvisation Junior Class! He was very happy about his great achievement.

"I need to thank for Aristo's piano teacher for the hearty teaching," said Aristo's mother, "Aristo's teacher uses a lot of inspiring method like story-telling, to teach and impress my son background of the pieces - you know, Chopin's music was often composed of difficult techniques, effects and emotions. Thanks to her effort, Aristo is able to play the pieces well."

The whole prize presentation ceremony had been divided into morning and afternoon session. At the beginning, Champion of each class showed up on stage with their prize-winning pieces, which became an invaluable sharing to all the guests and participants. To music-lover, such concert is really precious to vitalize their vision of music!

The concert was then followed by the prize presentation. Honorable guests presented the trophies and certificates to winners and other top-players for each class.

Certainly, attaining a prize was a glorious achievement, but what the most valuable was the lesson learnt and experience gained through competition on stage.

At last, all the guests and winners took a photo together, cheers! See you next year!