As you may have gathered, I’m in Chicago all week adjudicating at the Chicago AmateurPiano Competition. Judging starts today, but this competition offers an impressive events roster, a fairly unique concept amongst competitions, which runs in tandem, therefore proceedings actually started last night.

Fifty-five talented pianists will play a short programme over the next two days with finals taking place on Friday (for the two-round competition) and Saturday morning (for the three-round competition). However, events kicked off last night with a ‘Meet the judges’ interview which was live streamed on Youtube. Russian/American pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski, American pianist and composer, Adam Neiman, and myself (pictured above) will adjudicate over the next few days and this interview was designed to introduce competitors to their judges and provide an opportunity to ask questions about our lives.

You can watch the whole interview, although sadly, the connection was lost at the beginning so around 10 minutes of the opening has been cut, by clicking on the link below. The competition starts in just a few hours, and we will be hearing around half of the competitors today. I hope you find it interesting.

Publications

Melanie Spanswick has written and published a wide range of courses, anthologies, examination syllabuses, and text books, including Play it again: PIANO (published by Schott Music). This best-selling graded, progressive piano course contains a large selection of repertoire featuring a huge array of styles and genres, with copious practice tips and suggestions for every piece.

For more information, please visit the publications page, here.