Unisa online - The final round of the 12th Unisa Piano Competition

From left: Enrique Bernaldo de Quiros (Spain), Stanislav Khristenko (Russia), Heejae Kim (Republic of Korea), Christopher Janwong McKiggan (UK), Sebastian Di Bin (Italy) & Lukas Vondracek (Czech Republic)

Six finalists, all from different countries, will play nine different piano concerti in the final round of the prestigious 12th Unisa International Piano Competition in the ZK Matthews Great Hall at Unisa.

The finalists are Enrique Bernaldo de Quiros (Spain), Sebastian Di Bin (Italy), Stanislav Khristenko (Russia), Heejae Kim (Republic of Korea), Christopher Janwong McKiggan (UK) and Lukas Vondracek (Czech Republic).

The final round is divided into two parts. Part one contains Mozart concerti and Beethoven’s concerto no 1, while part two contains larger scaled concerti such as those by Schumann, Liszt and Tchaikovsky.

Members of the public attending the final round can look forward to a wide variety of piano concerti. On Tuesday 31 January 2012, Khristenko, Kim and Di Bin will play Mozart’s concerto no 23 in A minor, his concerto no 20 in D minor and Beethoven’s concerto no 1 in C major respectively.

On Wednesday 1 February 2012, McKiggan, Vondracek and Bernaldo de Quiros will all play Mozart: Concerto no 24 in C minor, no 23 in A major and no 20 in D minor.

On Friday night it will again be Khristenko, Kim and Di Bin. They will play Rachmaninov (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini), Schumann (Concerto in A minor) and Liszt (Concerto no 1 in E flat major) respectively.

On Saturday, McKiggan, Vondracek and Bernaldo de Quiros will perform their second concerti: Beethoven’s no 4 in G major, Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Tchaikovsky’s Concerto no 1 in B flat minor.

The concerts start at 19:30 each night. The final round will be broadcast live by Radio Today on 1485 AM in the greater Johannesburg area and on DStv Audio Channel 169 nationally. The final round will also be streamed live on the internet  from Radio Today’s website.

The prize winners will be announced after the jury has voted for the last time on Saturday night.

For more information, please contact the Unisa Music Foundation (012 429 3311) or visit their website: www.unisa.ac.za/musicfoundation.

*Story submitted by Alet Joubert