Teen Jie Chen Takes Top Honors at Second International Piano-E-Competition

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (June 11, 2004) — Jie Chen, an 18-year-old from Canton province in China who resides in Philadelphia, was named on June 4 as the First Prize winner of the second International Piano-e-Competition in Minneapolis, MN. In presenting the prize at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, competition founder, president and executive director Alex Braginski praised Chen for standing out in a large field of extremely talented competitors from around the world.

Inesa Sinkevych of Israel, Yung Wook Yoo of South Korea, Hanna Shybayeva of Belarus and Tatiana Kolesova and Denis Evstioukhine of Russia were the five other finalists who emerged from the Piano-e-Competition's earlier rounds.

This year's jury for the Recital and Final Rounds in Minneapolis-St. Paul was chaired by Menahem Pressler of the United States, and included Dmitri Bashkirov of Russia, Ruth Laredo and Gyorgy Sandor of the U.S., Sontraud Speidel of Germany, Dubravka Tomsic of Slovenia and Liqing Yang of China.

What makes the Piano-e-Competition completely unique is the ability of Yamaha Disklavier technology to record and later transmit the competitors' performances over the Internet. The Disklavier is a concert-quality piano with a built-in system to record live performances as MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) data and recreate them from disk using the same hammers and strings a live artist plays, with every nuance delivered faithfully.

The complete list of winners in the 2004 International Piano-e-Competition:

First Prize:
Jie Chen, China, age 18
The First Prize includes a $25,000 cash award, a Spring 2005 debut recital in Alice Tully Hall at New York's Lincoln Center, a CD release on The Schubert Club's Ten Thousand Lakes label and a Yamaha DC3A 6'1" Disklavier polished ebony grand piano.

Second Prize:
Yung Wook Yoo, South Korea, age 26
The Second Prize includes a $15,000 cash award.

Third Prize:
Denis Evstioukhine, Russia, age 23
The Third Prize includes a $10,000 cash award.

Fourth Prize:
Tatiana Kolesova, Kazakhstan, age 24
The Fourth Prize includes a $6,000 cash award.

Fifth Prize:
Hanna Shybayeva, Belarus, age 25
The Fifth Prize includes a $5,000 cash award.

Sixth Prize:
Inesa Sinkevych, Israel, age 27
The Sixth Prize includes a $4,000 cash award.

Honorable mention for Mozart Sonata
Jia Ran, China, age 15

Honorable mention for Chopin Etudes
Ko-Eun Lee, South Korea, age 18

In the inaugural Piano-e-Competition in 2002, American Mei-Ting Sun took top honors. The biennial event is distinguished for both its quality and its technical sophistication; international authority Gustav Alink ranked the inaugural International Piano-e-Competition among the top 30 piano competitions in the world in his book Piano Competitions Worldwide.

The unique Disklavier technology was used to select the 24 final contestants from 60 artists who were invited, based upon performance recordings at live screening auditions in December 2003 in Hamamatsu, Japan; Paris, France; Los Angeles, CA and New York, NY. The contestants' audition performances were digitally videotaped and recorded as MIDI data on a Yamaha Disklavier concert grand piano at each of the respective audition sites. In early January 2004, a six-member screening panel judged the contestants' performances using another Disklavier and a large projection video screen at Sundin Hall at Hamline University in Minneapolis, where the Recital and Final Rounds later took place. This is the first time in the history of piano competitions that a screening round was successfully completed with the "live" contestants not actually present.

In addition, members of the general public can download and hear the Audition, Recital and Final Round performances as MIDI files on their own computers from the e-competition home page. In the final round of the 2002 competition, acclaimed pianist Yefim Bronfman even participated as a remote "e-judge" from Tokyo, Japan using this method.

During the Competition Finals, competitors performed on a traditional nine-foot Yamaha CFIIIS concert grand piano, one of the world's finest instruments. What is unique is that the piano is equipped with Disklavier Pro reproducing technology, capable of transmitting performances as MIDI computer data through the Internet, which is then playable on similarly-equipped Yamaha pianos in other locations – their keys and pedals moving up and down, capturing every detail of the original performance.

The event, organized by Minneapolis-based Musicians in Debut International, was sponsored by Hamline University, the Grand Hotel Minneapolis, Minnesota Public Radio and Yamaha Corporation of America, with participation by Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, The Rosalyra Quartet, The Schubert Club, The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Murry Sidlin.

In addition to a cash award of $25,000, as First Prize winner of this year's Piano-e-Competition, Chen will receive a Yamaha DC3A 6' 1" Disklavier polished ebony grand piano, a Spring 2005 New York City Debut Recital at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center sponsored by Yamaha Corporation of America, a CD issued on the Ten Thousand Lakes label, a Yamaha PianoSoft recording for the Yamaha Disklavier reproducing piano and engagements with the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert in Chicago, IL; the Minnesota Orchestra; the Schubert Club and the Richmond Symphony Orchestra. The second- through sixth-prize winners will receive cash prizes as well.

For more information about the International Piano-e-Competition, visit www.piano-e-competition.com.

For more information about Yamaha pianos, write Yamaha Corporation of America, Piano Division, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622-6600; e-mail infostation@yamaha.com.; or telephone (714) 522-9011.