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A Piano Summit in Japan

Competitions

At long last: the Hamamatsu Piano Competition is back with overwhelming interest and support- among competitors, in the audience, and in the city

Following an exciting two weeks of great piano playing and two nights of finals, the 12th Hamamatsu international Piano Competition ended with an unexpected triumph: Manami Suzuki, 22, from Osaka, won the First Prize of JPY 4.000.000 as well as the Chamber Music Prize and the Audience Prize. 

This is a huge honor for me. I watched the Hamamatsu Piano Competition online in 2018 and knew I wanted to enter it one day. I was also hugely inspired by the film based on Riku Onda’s wonderful book Honeybees and Distant Thunder, a fictional tale about a Japanese piano competition (newly-available translated into English). It is quite overwhelming to win but I just want to carry on as before, practising my favourite composers – Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert – and playing as sincerely as I can.'

Besides the prize money, Suzuki will receive a concert tour in Japan, a recording by Orchid Classics and a recital at London´s King´s Place as well as other performances in Warsaw and Paris.

Out of 638 Applicants (twice the number of 2018), 87 competitors from 26 countries were selected to perform live in Japan. 

Manami Suzuki, 1st prize winner

Second Prize of the Competition was won by Jonas Aumiller (26, born in Munich) while Third Prize went to Kaito Kobayashi (29, from Yokohama). Rather surprisingly, JJ Jun Li Bui, a student of Dang Thai Son and an early favourite of the competition, only won 4th prize.

Jonas Aumiller, 2nd prize winner

Kaito Kobayashi, 3rd prize

Chairwoman Noriko Ogawa, who completes her term in Hamamatsu with this competition, commented: “Following the strict rules of the competition duly upheld, my colleagues of the Jury were not permitted to confer between themselves about any of the competitors, so it was a wonderful surprise to discover that we had voted the first Japanese prize winner, who has now become the first woman to win.  The Hamamatsu Piano Competition is above all a wonderful showcase for the famous piano makers of Hamamatsu, the home of the manufacturers of Yamaha and Kawai pianos.   With the choice of three instruments, Manami Suzuki selected the new Steinway which is held at Act City’s concert hall. This was also the first time Steinway won the Competition!”

Noriko Ogawa, Chairwoman

Born in Osaka in 2002, Manami Suzuki began playing the piano at the age of four. After graduating from Osaka Prefectural Yuhigaoka High School's music course, she enrolled at Tokyo College of Music as a scholarship student. Currently, she is pursuing a master's degree at Tokyo College of Music. She has received guidance from Chikako Inagaki, Miaki Sato, Rie Ishii, and Mizuho Nakada in the past. Presently, she is studying under Katsunori Ishii. Additionally, she has received instruction from world-class pianists and piano professors such as Elisso Virsaladze, Ronan O'Hora, Markus Schirmer, Noriko Ogawa, and Luis Fernando Perez at the Hamamatsu International Piano Academy (2023-2024) , the masterclasses of PTNA (Piano Teachers’ National Association of Japan) and other masterclasses. Suzuki is the winner of several national piano competitions in Japan.

Noriko Ogawa and Manami Suzuki

Prizes:
1st prize: Manami Suzuki (22), Osaka
2nd prize: Jonas Aumiller (26), Munich
3rd prize: Kaito Kobayashi (29), Yokohama

Jury:
Noriko Ogawa (chair), Hortense Cartier-Bresson, Dang Thai Son, Paul Hughes, Peter Jablonski, Momo Kodama, Ewa Kupiec, Pedja Muzijevic, Ronan O’Hora, Ilya Rashkovskiy, Akiyoshi Sako

Artists:
Tokyo Symphony Orchestra/ Toshiaki Umeda (Conductor)

 

© WFIMC / FR