Pianists of the Sydney International Piano Competition (1992-2016)

Described by The Australian as 'a boon for lovers of the piano and those keeping an ear on exciting musical talent', the Sydney International Piano Competition (The Sydney) has become a fixture on the classical music landscape.

This unique retrospective chronicles more than 100 fascinating performances. They were recorded by 77 pianists during seven events over two decades (1992 - 2016).

Over its 14 hours, the eleven CDs in this Limited Edition encompass music by more than 55 composers from Agnew to Zaderetsky and the anthology is organised in seven categories: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Twentieth Century, Transcriptions & Encores, Australian Piano Music and Piano Concertos. Anyone who has followed The Sydney will recognise the excitement, the fever pitch as this great quadrennial festival of pianism heads towards the final rounds.

This set provides the listener then with a cornucopia of pianism. You can hear lyrical grace in so many of the Scarlatti sonatas, and particularly Rustem Khairutdinov's 1992 performance of the D minor, Kk.9. Poise and rapt stillness informs Roberto Cominati's 1996 Debussy (Images, Book II), and the clarity of voicing is carried through in his performance of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto, where, you're swept away with the excitement, but hear all the notes!

Excitement is to be found on virtually each disc in the set, but particularly in the 'Transcriptions & Encores' volume, as well as in the Rachmaninov and Sancan performances by Olivier Cazal, Yuki Takao's Hexentanz (Macdowell), and Tatiana Kolesova's Petrushka pieces. The anthology also gives us the opportunity to experience Australian piano music as interpreted by a range of pianists from, among others, countries like Russia, Canada, China, the United States, Sweden and Japan (and, of course, Australia).

The booklet includes full recording details, and introduction by The Sydney's chairman Virginia Braden, and notes by Piers Lane (Artistic Director of The Sydney), and Cyrus Meher-Homji, who initiated a long-running series of recordings from The Sydney from 1992 onwards and curated this boxed set.

Artists
Charlie Albright (piano), Hiroshi Arimori (piano), Yurij Bogdanov (piano), Michele Bolla (piano), Kenneth Broberg (piano), Olivier Cazal (piano), John Chen (piano), Moye Chen (piano), Roberto Cominati (piano), Hanna Cyba (piano), Daniel del Pino (piano), Shan Deng (piano), David Fung (piano), Yui Fushiki (piano), Duncan Gifford (piano), Jayson Gillham (piano), Daniel Gortler (piano), Masataka Goto (piano), Ayesha Gough (piano), Dmitry Grigortsevich (piano), Andrey Gugnin (piano), Stephen Ham (piano), Daniel Hill (piano), Ivo Janssen (piano), Tanel Joamets (piano), Alyosha Jurinic (piano), Vera Kameneva (piano), Rustem Khairutdinov (piano), Young-Ah Kim (piano), Tomoki Kitamura (piano), Tatiana Kolesova (piano), Marina Kolomiitseva (piano), Jianing Kong (piano), Xiang-Dong Kong (piano), Rachel Kudo (piano), Alexey Kurbatov (piano), Leonid Kuzmin (piano), Viktoria Lakissova (piano), Tony Lee (piano), Clemens Leske (piano), Jin-Hong Li (piano), Jiarong Liu (piano), Roman Lopatynskiy (piano), Anna Malikova (piano), Martin Malmgren (piano), Konstantin Masliouk (piano), Alexei Melnikov (piano), Danae O'Callaghan (piano), Owen (piano), Cristiana Pegoraro (piano), Ilya Rashkovsky (piano), Vitaly Samoschko (piano), Olga Samossoueva (piano), Takashi Sato (piano), Damien Scott (piano), Konstantin Shamray (piano), Helen Sim (piano), Yoon Soo Rhee (piano), Masataka Takada (piano), Yuki Takao (piano), Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev (piano)

Sergei Tarasov (piano), Daniil Tsvetkov (piano), Ayako Uehara (piano), Evgeny Ukhanov (piano), Rem Urassin (piano), Valeria Vetruccio (piano)

Alexei Volodin (piano), Gottlieb Wallisch (piano), Wojciech Wisniewski (piano), Roger Wright (piano), Ming Xie (piano), Alexey Yemtsov (piano)

Nicholas Young (piano), Avan Yu (piano), Marta Zabaleta (piano), Jie Zheng (piano)