Another fab Piano Competition at Sheepdrove
Sheepdrove, just beyond Lambourn, provided its marvellous backdrop in brilliant sunshine for its 16th Piano Competition – and in that time it has become firmly established as one of the important piano competitions in the UK. Part of the Newbury Spring Festival, it was as fabulous as ever.
The competition is open to candidates aged 26 and under from the eight major UK music colleges and, yesterday, 16 candidates were whittled down to four finalists. Sunday’s finalists originally hailed from Uzbekistan, China, Ukraine and Italy but are all currently studying in our great colleges. And each presented a 25-minute programme, featuring pieces from Ravel and one other classical composer of their choice before the audience and six august judges.
The competition is remarkable, not least because there is no cost to entrants, with the Sheepdrove Trust covering all candidates’ travel, subsistence and accommodation expenses for the weekend competition. So, whatever the outcome, competitors have a super weekend.
The eventual winner was Nikita Burzanitsa, studying for his “Masters” at The Royal College of Music, who comes from a family of musicians in Donetsk, Ukraine. He treated the audience to two movements from Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit (Treasurer of the night), including the Scarbo movement, which is considered one of the most difficult solo piano pieces in the standard repertoire. (Probably no surprise, then, that two candidates showed off their breath-taking skills with this monumental piece). He followed with Brahms’s Variations on the theme of Paganini – a stunner!
One of the joys of the competition for regular goers – I’m one – is the audience prize. It was abundantly clear, as we all voted ahead of tea and cake in the garden, that Nikita Burzanitsa was the audience pick. And so it was. So, he collected two prizes, together worth £2,500.
He will be giving a public recital tomorrow (19th May) as part of the Festival’s Young Artists Lunchtime Recital Series at the Corn Exchange, Newbury at 12.30pm. Be there! You’ll be amazed at the talent.
The photo above shows Nikita with Festival Director, Mark Eynon
