15th Annual Chopin Piano Competition
A Special Anniversary
Saturday, September 17, 2016
250 Old Maxwell Road, Latham, NY 12110
(Watch the 14th Annual Chopin Piano Competition Winners' Concert)

About the Competition
15 Years of Masterful Atistry

​IMPORTANT UPDATE July 25, 2016
Registration is now full all levels

15 years ago marked the birth of the Annual Chopin Piano Competition. Please join us as we celebrate a decade-and-a-half of growth and brilliant musicianship as young musicians compete in this year's competition. The Annual Chopin Piano Competition event allows serious piano students throughout the region to showcase their skill. The Competition is judged by a panel of accomplished musicians and will be held at 250 Old Maxwell Road in Latham on Saturday, September 17, 2016.

Contestants perform one piece composed by Chopin, with Apprentice and Master level students selecting and additional composition from an approved repertoire. Winners and runners-up will perform for the community in a concert on Sunday, September 18.

Winners also receive cash prizes: The Chopin Novice winner is awarded  $100; the Chopin Apprentice level winner, $500; and the Chopin Master level winner, $1000. Runners-up receive $50, $100, and $250, respectively.

A new 2nd Runner-Up Mazurka Award has been added to the Apprentice-Level. 

Use of the Steinway Concert Grand piano is being donated by Artist Pianos in Latham. The awards will be presented at the Winners’ Concert and a special 15th Anniversary reception will follow, featuring gourmet desserts.

Competition Rules
Please read below as some age requirements have been amended as of April 29, 2016

Download The Registration Form

• The competition is open to piano students between the ages 6 - 19 who live or study within a 50 mile radius of the Capital District. 
• Include one copy of the composition(s) you have chosen to play for the competition.
• Apprentice and Master level students must select an additional composition from the list of approved selections (found below).
• Registration is limited to first 10 applications received in each level.
• Applicants may choose to be on a waiting list if a level is full.
• Previous winners of the Chopin Competition are ineligible to compete in same level. 
• By September 3rd, we will notify you of the time of your performance and other logistics.
• First and 2nd Place winners agree to perform in a Winners Concert on September 18.
• Non-refundable registration fee of $35 is due with Registration Form.
• The 2016 Competition will be adjudicated by faculty from SUNY Fredonia's School of Music

​
Chopin Novice
May choose any Chopin composition
​
Chopin Apprentice
Participant must play two compositions: 1) any Chopin composition of choice, and 2) one from the following list:

Mazurkas:

Op. 6 No.4
Op. 17 No. 1
Op. 17 No. 2
Op. 24 No. 1 
Op. 24 No. 2
Op. 24 No. 3
Op. 30 No. 2
Op. 30 No. 3
Op. 33 No. 1

​​Op. 33 No. 2​​
Op. 33 No. 3 
Op. 41 No. 1 
Op. 41 No. 4 
Op. 56 No. 2
Op. 59 No. 2
Op. 63 No. 1
Op. 63 No. 3

Chopin Master
Participant must be at least 13 years old* and play two compositions: 1) any Chopin composition of choice, and 2) one Etude in either Op. 10 or Op. 25 (Excluding Op. 10, No. 3 and Op. 25, No. 7)

* Age requirement can be waived if student has won first place in the Apprentice Level and is competent to compete in the Master Level. (updated 4/29/16) 
​Registration requirement amendment does not affect the status of registrations already received.

Meet the ​Adjudicators

Dr. Eliran Avni


​Described by The New York Times as possessing both “ironclad technique” and “ample suppleness” and hailed as “The new hope of Israeli music” by Ma’ariv, Eliran Avni is an emerging force in the contemporary classical music scene. Having made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta at age seventeen, Mr. Avni has appeared as a soloist and chamber collaborator throughout Europe, North and South America, as well as in his native Israel and has made numerous recordings for the Naxos label and the Israeli and German broadcasting systems. A charismatic lecturer and teacher, Mr. Avni has given master classes and lectures on the connection between music and the emotions in the US and Israel and has taught at prestigious institutions such as The Juilliard School and the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival.
Mr. Avni began his musical training at the Tel Aviv Academy, studying with Marina Bondarenko. He soon developed a strong affinity for chamber music and worked with leading musicians such as Yo Yo Ma, Isaac Stern, and Yefim Bronfman. At age sixteen he won first prize in both the Clairmont and Rachmaninoff Competitions and was an annual scholarship recipient from the Israel-America Cultural Foundation from 1989 to 2000.

A frequent collaborator, Mr. Avni has worked with renowned musicians such as Yehonatan Berick, Daniel Müller-Schott, Yehuda Hanani, Terrence Wilson, Jennifer Aylmer, William Sharp, the Chicago Chamber Music Players, actors Sigourney Weaver and Richard Chamberlain, as well as in performances of Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes with dancer Laura Careless.
Mr. Avni received both his BM and MM degrees while studying with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky at The Juilliard School and completed his DMA degree as a student of both Dr. Kaplinsky and Jerome Lowenthal. His dissertation: “The Musician’s Challenge: Merging Emotion and Structure in Performance,” written under the advisement of Dr. Carl Schachter, presents an original methodology designed to assist musicians in uncovering and understanding the emotional content of musical works.
A preeminent interpreter of the music of American-Israeli composer Avner Dorman, Mr. Avni has been privileged to record two CDs of Dorman’s music. The first, The Piano Works of Avner Dorman, recorded at Tanglewood’s Ozawa’s Hall in 2006, was produced by Grammy winner David Frost and released on the Naxos label. The second CD, of Dorman’s Chamber Concerti with the Metropolis Ensemble and Maestro Andrew Cyr, was released in 2010, also on Naxos.

Mr. Avni is also the artistic director of SHUFFLE Concert, an original performance concept that allows the audience to select the music performed in a concert. A mixed-chamber ensemble of six virtuoso musicians, SHUFFLE Concert offers a rich selection of more than 30 pieces in 15 different musical styles. Since its inception in February 2010, SHUFFLE Concert has been in high-demand, and has performed at the Rose Studio at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kosciuszko Foundation, to name a few. The ensemble’s debut album was released in October 2013.
Recent performances for Mr. Avni include a performance with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta at Carnegie Hall of Dorman’s orchestrated piano work Azerbaijani Dance, a SHUFFLE Concert tour to Israel in November 2015 and the West Coast in October 2015, a debut performance with the Alabama Symphony of Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto in February 2012 and a debut performance with the Oakland East Bay Symphony in April 2013.

Presently, Mr. Avni is dividing his time between performing solo and chamber concerts, leading SHUFFLE Concert, teaching at SUNY Fredonia and conducting workshops and master classes on the subject of emotional understanding of music.

Seán Duggan, OSB, pianist
Seán Duggan, OSB, is a monk of St. Joseph Abbey in Covington, Louisiana. He obtained his music degrees from Loyola University in New Orleans and Carnegie Mellon University, and received a Master’s degree in theology from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. From 1988 to 2001 he taught music, Latin and religion at St. Joseph Seminary College in Louisiana and was director of music and organist at St. Joseph Abbey.

In September, 1983 he won first prize in the Johann Sebastian Bach International Competition for Pianists in Washington, D.C., and again in August, 1991. Having a special affinity for the music of Bach, in 2000 he performed the complete cycle of Bach’s keyboard works eight times in various American and European cities. For seven years he hosted a weekly program on the New Orleans NPR station entitled “Bach on Sunday.” He is presently in the midst of recording the complete cycle of Bach’s keyboard (piano) music which will comprise 24 CDs.

Before he joined the Benedictine order he was pianist and assistant chorus master for the Pittsburgh Opera Company for three years. He has performed with many orchestras including the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Leipzig Baroque Soloists, The Prague Chamber Orchestra, The American Chamber Orchestra and the Pennsylvania Sinfonia. From 2110 to 2004 he was a visiting professor of piano at the University of Michigan. Currently he is associate professor of piano at Fredonia. During the fall semester of 2008 he was also a guest professor of piano at Eastman School of Music. He has been a guest artist and adjudicator at the Chautauqua Institution for several summers, and is also a faculty member of the Golandsky Institute at Princeton, New Jersey. He continues to study the Taubman approach with Edna Golandsky in New York City.