The Honens International Piano Competition announced its five finalists late last night. The sole Canadian entrant, Avan Yu, did not make the list.

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John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

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The final round of the competition is being held Thursday and Friday (Oct. 25 & 26) with the Calgary Philharmonic under music director Roberto Minczuk. The five contenders are: Italian Lorenzo Cossi (aged 30), Russians Pavel Kolesnikov (23) and Maria Mazo (30), South Korean Jong-Hai Park (22) and American Eric Zuber (27).

The winner, referred to as the Honens Laureate, gets a world-leading $100,000 in cash, plus a recording contract and career development package the competition says is worth $500,000.

The final round will be streamed live, beginning at 9:30 p.m. (Eastern) on Thursday and Friday. The jury will deliberate immediately after the final performance.

Three of the finalists will play the first piano concerto by Brahms, two will tackle Tchaikovsky (the first, of course) and Zuber will offer  Rachmaninov’s second.

The jury for this portion of the competition includes Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker as well as Michael Spring, the creative force behind the fine piano recording programme at Britain’s Hyperion records (the label of record for Canadians Angela Hewitt and Marc-André Hamelin, among many other greats).

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Here, for fun, is Cossi performing a Bach-Busoni showpiece, the Prelude and Fugue (BWV 552) on the hymn tune we know at St Anne (O God Our Help in Ages Past) at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition three years ago. Who needs an orchestra when there are pieces like this to be tackled?

The Prelude:

The gorgeous Fugue:

 John Terauds

• Author
• Recent Posts

John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

Latest posts by John Terauds (see all)

• Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
• Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
• CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019