Reported by Chang Xunzhi

Edited by Wang Wei

Recently, the Sixth Asian Youth Music Final Competition has been successfully concluded at the concert hall of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. This three-day competition attracted more than 150 piano participants from over 10 countries and regions. Mr. Zhang Hanchao, a young teacher from School of Art and Communication, BNUZ, won the Third Prize in the Group A of Chinese Music Pieces.

The Asian Youth Music Competition (AYMC) was founded in Hong Kong in 2002. Held every three years, it is known as a distinguished competition in the field of Asian pianists, aiming to discover talents at piano and make its contribution to the development of Asian piano education and music culture. This year, Asian region is the basis of this competition, and its scale extents to the world. In the competition, there were over 7000 young piano participants from Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, the USA, Canada, the UK, Germany and other regions. Among these participants, only 157 competitors accessed to the final competition after rounds of selection. The judges of this competition consisted of totally 30 professional pianists and heads of Department of Piano from music schools, such as Li Mingqiang, Shucheng Shi and Zhou Mingsun, strictly implementing evaluation criteria. The competition was also with the support of Media including CCTV, People’s Daily and Chinese Musicians’ Association.

The Group A of Chinese Music Pieces, which Mr. Zhang Hanchao participated in, was designed especially for the promotion of modern Chinese piano pieces. In the final, all required music pieces set by organizing committee were new pieces created by Chinese contemporary composers with diverse styles and complex performance techniques. Due to the lack of relevant research on these new pieces, it was full of challenges for competitors to play them with their personal understandings and emotions. As the Champion in the Group A of Chinese Music Pieces of Guangdong Competition Division, Mr. Zhang Hanchao selected Doye created by Chen Yi, the composer, and won the Third Prize in the final.

Interviewed by the press from Hong Kong after the final competition, Mr. Zhang Hanchao expressed that participating in this competition was to take the opportunity to study Chinese piano pieces and make efforts to promote the piano pieces as a practitioner in the field of Chinese piano education.

Translator: Li Xin

Reviewer: Lin Fan