The Final Round of the First International Competition-Festival Sberbank DEBUT has just been over!

The final round of the first International Competition-Festival Sberbank DEBUT has just been over! It was a great event both for Ukraine and all youth pianist schools of the world. The fest of music ends on 17th of November with the award ceremony at 19:00 (Kyiv) or 21:00 (Moscow)

Sberbank DEBUT took place in a city, dear to my heart. My mother grew up here and spent in Kyiv all her childhood. I feel very comfortable here and I adore the audience in Kyiv. Concert halls were full every evening and that inspired our young musicians a lot.

The event was carried out at the highest level, thanks to Sberbank of Russia in Ukraine and personally Igor Olegovich Yushko and Victor Pinchuk's Foundation. Together we made a great deal - find and showed to the world 15 wonderful young musicians.

The idea, which was born in Astana during the competition-festival “Astana Piano Passion” in Kazakhstan in spring this year, was developed further here at Sberbank DEBUT. Rules of competition, which we invented for this new generation of contests for young performers, in fact is unprecedented: first, we picked out 15 children under 13 years from all over the world of candidates, who sent us their video artistic CV. The organizers paid for their tickets to Kyiv together with an accompanying person (the parent or the teacher), accommodation and food. Secondly, all the selected children are involved in both rounds of the competition (solo and with orchestra) and no one is eliminated. In the end, it turns out that all the participants are guaranteed to receive a diploma of competition (10 children) and $ 1000 or to become a winner (5 children) with $ 5,000. Throughout the contest-festival all the participants have a unique possibility to attend master-classes and concerts of members of the international jury, who are worth mentioning separately. This year jury consists of Michel Beroff (France), Hyoung Joon Chang (Korea), Vadim Rudenko (Russia/Ukraine), Yuri Kot (Ukraine), Valery Pyasetskiy (Russia), Myrian Dauelsberg (Brazil).

We also offer additional special prizes for the children. My prizes are possibility to take part in all my festivals, such as «Stars on Baikal», Crescendo, participation in the festival in Annecy (France), an educational grant for attending the summer creative school in Suzdal. Myrian Dauelsberg (Brazil), member of the jury, offers two trips to Brazil with concerts for our contestants.

In my opinion, the idea that nobody fails during the competition is very important and right, because a child's soul is very fragile, and no one should be upset. I am still under the impression from the competition and glad to inform you that we decided to make the festival an annual event.

We’ve just announced the winners of the contest-festival Sberbank DEBUT 2013.

Laureates: 

Simon Buerki (Switzerland), Nikita Burzanica (Ukraine), Shuan Hern Lee (Australia), Sandro Nebieridze (Georgia), Gleb-Joseph Romanchukevich (Russia)

Diplomas of competition go to:

Alexander Doronin (Russia), Eugeny Evgrafov (Russia), Mariya Klimenko (Ukraine), Catherine Kurilko (Ukraine), Iskandar Mamadaliev (Uzbekistan), Anastasia Makhamendrikova (Russia), Vitaly Petrov (Russia), Dmitry Semikras (Ukraine), Andrei Tarasenko (Russia), Christopher Yeung (Canada).

Tomorrow on 17th of November everyone is invited to the awarding ceremony at the Great Hall of the National Musical Academy of Ukraine or on the website of the competition, where you can watch online broadcast at 19:00 (Kyiv), or 21:00 (Moscow) at http://www.sberbank-debut.com. After awarding ceremony our young musicians will give their concert, and then I will perform the «Rhapsody in Blues» by G. Gershwin.

So raise a glass for the passion for music!