The Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition (in Spanish: Concurso Internacional de Piano de Santander "Paloma O'Shea") is a piano competition taking place in Santander, Spain. Founded in 1972 by Paloma O'Shea as a national prize, it turned into an international competition in its 2nd edition, and was professionalized in the mid-1970s, being accepted into the World Federation of International Music Competitions in 1976.
Organized by the Albéniz Foundation and chaired by the Infanta Margarita and sponsored by a network of civil service and private companies, it arranges an extensive world tour for the winners, including debuts in auditoriums such as the National Auditorium of Music and the Wigmore Hall and cash prizes. The competition takes place in the Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria.
The competition Currently, 20 pianists are accepted into the competition through a demanding shortlist of candidates. The competition consists of a preliminary round after a video-based admission round (pre-auditions in Spain, Paris, New York and Moscow), a recital round, a chamber music round, and final concerto round with a symphony orchestra.
Guest artists During the last stages of the competition, the participants perform with guest artists and ensembles. Past ensembles include the London Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Spanish National Orchestra, Madrid Symphony Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Takács Quartet, Ysaÿe Quartet, Quiroga Quartet and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and conductors Philippe Entremont, Sergiu Comissiona, Miguel Ángel Gómez Martínez, and Jesús López Cobos.
Juries Members of the jury have included Josep Colom, Gary Graffman, Federico Mompou, Vlado Perlemuter, Joaquín Achúcarro, Aldo Ciccolini, Nikita Magaloff, Paul Badura-Skoda, Hiroko Nakamura, Fou Ts'ong, Eliso Virsaladze, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Rafael Orozco, Philippe Entremont, Alicia de Larrocha, Dmitri Bashkirov, Dmitri Alexeev, Akiko Ebi, Márta Gulyás and Arie Vardi.
Prize winners
This is a partial listing of prize-winners of the Paloma O'Shea International Piano Competition.
Year Grand Prize 2nd prize 3rd prize Other1972 Josep Colom Jesús González Alonso —Honour Certificates Martín Millán Agustín Vergara1974 Ruriko Kikuchi Jesús González Alonso José M. Martínez Pínzolas María T. Berrueta de Rubio Honour Certificates Susan A. Howes Manuel Quesada María H. Revilla1975 Marioara Trifan Peter Bithell Rebecca A. Penneys4th: Silvie Carbonel 5th: Margarita Höhenrieder1976 Hüseyin Sermet Ivan Klánský Not awarded4th: Janina Drath Paulo E. Gori
5th: Nina Hamaguchi 6th: Marie Sprimont 7th: Milan Langer1977 Ramzi Yassa Jeremy Atkins David Allen Wehr Not awardedSpecial Prizes Jean G. Ferlan Kazuko Hayami Marc Ponthus1978 Josep Colom Frédéric Aguessy Anna Manasarova4th prize Andrey Diyev
Other prizes Anna Jastrzebska-Quinn Kim Myung Chung Krassimir Taskov1980Not awarded Barry Douglas Dan Atanasiu Francesco NicolosiAntonio Lavín prize Yumiko Maruyama
Ana de los Ríos prize Megumi Umene
Conservatory prize Gaswan K. Zerikly1982 Marc Raubenheimer Oleg Volkov Yves Rault4th: Alec Chien 5th: Eric N'Kaoua 6th: Kazuoki Fujii 1984 Hugh Tinney José Carlos Cocarelli Rauf Kasimov 4th: Fei-Ping Hsu 5th: Daniel Rivera 6th: William Koehler 7th: Nigora Akhmedova 8th: Edward Zilberkant Special prize: Viktor Chernelievsky1987 David Allen Wehr Sergey Yerokhin Bernd Glemser4th: Pavel Nersessian Xiang-Dong Kong 5th: Matthias Fletzberger Grand Prize Honour Prize Honour mentions Finalist prizes1990 Not awarded Sergey Yerokhin David Kuijken Brenno Ambrosini Viktor Lyadov Jean-François Dichamp Claudio Martínez Mehner
Semifinalists diploma Isabel Dubuis Mariana Gurkova Oxana Rapita Alexander Sandler Emily White Marta Zabaleta1992 Eldar Nebolsin Xu Zhong — Markus Groh Mariana Gurkova Eduardo Monteiro Vadim Rudenko1995 Not awarded Enrico Pompili — Armands Ābols Carl Cranmer Miguel Ituarte Polina Leschenko David M. Louie1998 Yung Wook Yoo Jong Hwa Park Plamena MangovaLaureate prizes Gustavo Díaz-Jerez Albert Tiu Alexei Volodin2002 Not awarded Boris Giltburg Ning An Soyeon Lee Laureate prizes Yunjie Chen Chih-Han Liu Alexander Romanovsky Minsoo Sohn Grand Prize 2nd prize 3rd prize Audience Prize2005 Alberto Nosè Herbert Schuch Jie Chen Alberto Nosè2008 Jue Wang Avan Yu Shizuka Susanna Salvemini Avan Yu2012 Not awarded Ahn Ah-ruem Tamar Beraia János Palojtay Tamar Beraia2015 Juan Pérez Floristán David Jae-Weon Huh Jianing Kong Juan Pérez Floristán2018 Dmytro Choni Yutong Sun Aleksandr Kliushko Juan Carlos Fernández-Nieto2022 Jaeden Izik-Dzurko Xiaolu Zang Marcel Tadokoro Jaeden Izik-Dzurko
Special prizes Year Best Spanish contestant Contemporary music Chamber music Spanish music 1978 María Teresa Berrueta de Rubio1980 Martin Doerrie Michiko Tsuda1982 Yves Rault Eric N'Kaoua1984 Luis Á. Sarobe William Koehler William Koehler Zuzana Paulechová1987 Jorge L. Otero Claire Desert Claire Desert Clélia Iruzun1990 Claudio Martínez Mehner David Kuijken Viktor Lyadov Mariana Gurkova1992 Marta Zabaleta Laura Mikkola Tatiana Pavlova Wi Yu1995 Enrico Pompili Armen Babakhanian Carl Cranmer
Grant-prizes Year1987 Xiang-Dong Kong 1990 Jean-François Dichamp Claudio Martínez Mehner Giorgia Tomassi1992 Carlos Apellániz Laura Mikkola Andrei Zheltonog1995 Freddy Kempf Polina Leschenko
See also Albéniz Foundation Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía List of classical music competitions Paloma O'Shea (founder of the competition)*
References
External links Albeniz Foundation Paloma O'Shea Santander Piano Competition