Some things just cannot be taught .When music becomes your life blood and you live every moment with joyous abandon ……just such a girl Yuri Yasui has been blessed by the Gods and the very distinguished jury had no doubt in awarding her the special Grand Prize for a scintillating performance of Rondo a la Mazur op 5

A wonderfully trained student of Dinara Klinton Deva Mira Sperandio was awarded the audience prize for a very professional performance of the Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise op 22.

I have been privileged this week to assist at performances by two other musical geniuses that makes one wonder where does this total dedication to music come from …………….it is very rare but when you are in their presence it is immediately instinctively apparent .

Shunta Morimoto takes Hastings by Storm

No words or comments are necessary as they fill the air with their mystical genius.A timelessness where the only thing that matters is their hypnotic music making.

Magdalene Ho in Florence and Milan The exquisite finesse and noble style of a musical genius………the final word

It may well be that some children at a very early age are attracted by the sounds that appeal to their senses and this starts a process of recreation- the birth of genius? Each child absorbs unconsciously what surrounds them long before they can actually express themselves in words or actions.I remember Yuanfan Yang’s parents with their young son who was at a friends sixth birthday party and one of the other parents asked for the name of their child’s piano teacher because he had played so wonderfully on the piano that he found at his friends birthday party. ‘ But he does not play the piano….we do not have a piano at home!’ exclaimed his mother .

Yuanfan Yang in paradise

This is one of the many mysteries of life !A musical paradise indeed !

Listening to this junior piano competition everyone played well – they were all well trained and dressed in their ‘Sunday best’ but then suddenly one of them shines brighter than all the others.

Hats off to Artur Haftman who has the courage with Jenny Lee to promote these young artists and share their discovery with us.

I remember Artur in his first year in London when he gave a lunchtime recital at St James’s Piccadilly where he got ten encores !!!!!

ARTUR HAFTMAN AT ST JAMES’S

I also remember Vanessa Latarche as the prize pupil of Miss Rowe in Ealing who has now grown up and promotes young musicians in such a caring and professional way via the RCM and the Lang Lang foundation not to mention the Hastings International and much else besides.

She quite rightly praised all the competitors for their performances knowing what courage is needed to play in the ‘Circus arena’ of competitions ……….a necessary evil which can give the much needed experience to young musicians who may decide when they grow up to take the very arduous path towards a career in music.

All the fun of the circus.The Busoni Competition

It was Artur Rubinstein at his first competition in Tel Aviv who told the contestants that they should be like the bees creating their own unique honey from the choice of flowers that attracted them.Musicians listening to music good,bad and indifferent and making their own choice of what pleases them and thus creating a thing called taste! Taste and style,imagination and intelligence are just some of the ingredients that can help and even sometimes contaminate great natural talent.

https://fb.watch/qEe5Co7rpf/

Teachers have a great responsibility to nurture and encourage natural talent and not to destroy it with general rules and regulations because each child has very specific needs that must be helped and nurtured with infinite care.

I saw Vitaly Pisarenko and Dinara Klinton in the audience to encourage the young musicians in their care.Both had themselves been child prodigies at the Gnessin school in Moscow where now we in the UK have the Menuhin and Purcell schools which can nurture and encourage great natural talent from a very early age – is it ever early enough though! Vitaly and Dinara are both now great pianists with International careers but they still find time to help these young musicians progress through their youthful journey of ‘Gradus ad Parnassum’ knowing from their own experience what hurdles may lay ahead.

Bewitched and amazed by Vitaly Pisarenko in Colombia

Dinara Klinton-EunsleyPark-Ella Rundle mastery and artistry for Tchaikowsky at the Royal Festival Hall

All this came into my head as I listened to the speeches and above all the music in the sumptuous surrounds of the Polish Hearth Club.

Way back in 2016 I wrote this which I have not the courage to re read seven years on ,but perhaps you do ! :https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2016/05/16/piano-competitions-a-consideration/