Between twenty-four (24) and thirty (30) contestants will be accepted to participate in the competition and their names will be announced to the public.
The signing of the acceptance form constitutes acceptance by the contestant of all rules and regulations. The original English version of these rules governs all interpretations.
All contestants will receive travel assistance of at least $1,000.
While participating in the competition, all contestants will be provided with housing, meals, practice facilities, and transportation.
All works are to be performed from memory and in their entirety, with the following exception: scores are permitted for the chamber music round.
Repertoire must be different for each round.
Submitted repertoire is subject to review by competition officials.
The order of appearance of pianists will be determined by a drawing conducted by competition officials that will be recorded and made available for viewing online.
Jury members will not make contact with contestants while such contestant is continuing to compete.
Contestants cannot be current students to any members of the jury. It is preferable that contestants have not had a master class with a member of the jury within the past six months.
Any jury member who has taught a contestant within the last five years, or who will teach a contestant in the immediate future, or has a family relationship with a contestant, must abstain from voting on that contestant. Jury members may also waive their vote for personal or professional reasons. All declarations of abstentions will be made the night before the competition begins and will be maintained throughout the competition.
All ballots will be written and signed without discussion and submitted to the Jury Chairman. The Jury Chairman will review the ballots and then submit them to competition officials for scoring.
Jury members will not discuss their opinions and decisions regarding proceedings, marks, or rankings outside the jury room.
Jury members will score each contestant on a range of 1 to 25 (except for their declared abstentions).
To balance the scores of a consistently high-scoring juror with a consistently low-scoring juror the scores of all jurors are processed to the same statistical distribution by computer. This scoring procedure overcomes a potential difficulty because it virtually eliminates the impact of any juror’s abstention. Without this balancing, it is possible that a contestant who is a student of a consistently high-scoring juror could be hurt when that judge necessarily abstains from voting for that candidate.
The decision of the jury is final and not subject to questions, revisions, or appeal.
The competition will consist of four separate rounds: first round (all contestants); second round (all contestants); semi-final round (eight contestants); chamber music round and concerto round (four contestants).
The names of the candidates for the second, third, and fourth rounds will be announced to the public in performance order without regard to rank. After the fourth round is completed, the names of the four finalists will be announced in order of rank.
Beginning with the semi-final round, after the score is determined for each contestant, a cumulative score will be determined as follows:
At the end of the semi-final round, the first and second rounds together count for 50% of the score, and the semi-final round counts for 50% of the score.
At the end of the final round, the first and second rounds together count for 25% of the score; the semi-final round counts for 25% of the score; chamber music round counts for 25% of the score; and the final concerto round counts for 25% of the score.
All announced prizes will be awarded.
Prizes may be subject to U.S. income tax laws.
If any unexpected situations arise in the execution of these guidelines, the Jury Chairman, the Chair of the Board of Directors, and the President will resolve such situations.
