From 6 to 9 January, 35 selected pianists took part in the First Round of Liszt Utrecht 2022: The Schubert Edition. Due to COVID, this First Round took place in an empty hall, but their musical performances could be followed via a livestream on www.liszt.nl. The festival takes place from 22 to 29 September 2022, with the final on the last day.
Following an online preliminary round, 40 pianists from 22 countries were selected to take part in the First Round in Utrecht. During the livestream of the First Round, only 35 pianists stepped onto the stage. The reason for this reduction of 5 was not disclosed. The selected young talents (aged 20 – 31) each received forty minutes of playing time with a free choice of Liszt repertoire to convince the jury. The selection jury, consisting of Mariam Batsashvili, Andrea Bonatta, Leslie Howard, Christiaan Kuyvenhoven and Igor Roma, chose 10 candidates whom we will see again in September 2022 at Tivolivredenburg.
The 10 candidates, in alphabetical order, are: Viktoria Baskakova (Russia), Yukine Kuroki (Japan), Minkyu Kim (South Korea), Tamta Magradze (Georgia), Matyáš Novák (Czech Republic), Yeon-Min Park (South Korea), Leonardo Pierdomenico (Italy), Vitaly Starikov (Russia), Derek Wang (U.S.A.) and Kajeng Wong (Hong Kong). If you would like to see them at work already now, you can (re)watch the livestream here.
The festival rounds take place from 22 to 26 September 2022 and consist of 4 different rounds: piano recital, chamber music, song recital and a second piano recital. The schedule can be found below. On 29 September 2022 the final follows, which also concludes the festival. For more information, please visit www.liszt.nl.
