Credits:

Jonathan Fournel, Sergei Redkin, Tsutomu Tsumagari, Tomoki Sakata, Vitari Stalikov, and Dmitri Shin.

Description:

Japan Pre-Release! Keigo Mutsukawa and Tomoki Sakata won prizes at QEC20215A live recording of a passionate performance from the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition, which just concluded on May 29 (Japan time), is now available! The Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition is one of the most prestigious competitions in the world and is known as one of the "World's Three Great Competitions" along with the Tchaikovsky Competition and the Chopin Competition. Including the days of its predecessor, the Eugène Ysaÿe Competition, the winners of the piano competition include Emile Gilleris (1938), Leon Fleischer (1952), Vladimir Ashkenazy (1956), Abdel Rahman El-Basha (1978), Frank Blarey (1991), Anna Vinitsky (1991), and Vladimir Nikolay (1991). The 2021 Piano Competition has been postponed one year from its original schedule of 2020 (due to the global pandemic of the new coronavirus infection). As the first major competition to be held after the pandemic, it attracted a great deal of attention. In Japan, Keigo Tsumikawa and Tomoki Sakata, both from Aichi Prefecture, won prizes and were introduced in newspapers and on TV, so many of you may have seen the competition. This album contains selected performances by the six prize-winning pianists from the semi-finals and finals.As the competition is known for its difficulty, this year's six prizewinners are all talented musicians who have already established professional careers, and their performances were of a very high level. Since the competition was held without an audience, there was no applause as they waited impatiently for the end of the performance, but that is the only way in 2021 to be able to concentrate on the performance and enjoy the afterglow. All of the performances were of a high standard, but the music of Furnell and Redkin was superb in every piece. The third prize winner, Keigo Tsumikawa, played Mozart's last piano concerto, No. 27, with impressive depth of flavor, and the sense of style heard in the Rameau piece was also very impressive. The winner of the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition, Tomoki Sakata (4th prize), performs his gripping B minor Sonata. 6 on CD1 is the new piece for the semi-finals and 5 is the new piece for the finals. Naxos Japan