NTD International Piano Competition Aims to Promote Traditional Arts

NTD’s 6th International Piano Competition continued in New York on Oct. 31, with 11 semifinalists competing for a chance to win the gold trophy. NTD spoke with some of the contestants about what it means to play traditional compositions.

The mission of this competition is to promote traditional arts, bringing out pure authenticity, goodness, and beauty.

Semifinalists were required to choose compositions from only the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods.

To semifinalist Trinity Goff, contemporary music is important, but traditional music is more uplifting.

“I do think it’s also important to have more of a return to beauty for beauty’s sake and not just music that brings you down to earth all the time because you’ve got the pain and ugliness of the earth. I feel like contemporary composers have to bring you down, all the time,” Goff said.

Carolina Danese, a semifinalist from Italy, said this competition was different from others she participated in. “In the other competitions, you are much more concentrated on the main pieces all the time and you don’t have really nothing to discover, like you just play what you always played in your education and you do your best. In this competition, you have to improve maybe something else and study as well, something else, not just on piano,” and the requirements of this competition were a good fit for her, she said.

“I usually prefer to play Baroque and classical music. And Romantic as well, but mostly Baroque and classics, so for me it was easier somehow, not to show the last classical period of music because it’s usually not in my repertoire, so I was lucky,” Danese continued.

Some contestants like contemporary and classical music but distinguish the differences.

Antonii Baryshevskyi who is a semifinalist from Ukraine said, “Classical music is absolutely great with its clearness of the forms and its clearness of the textures.”

“In the 20th Century, every composer created his own style and developed his own ideas so that sometimes [they] completely different from each other,” Baryshevskyi said.

The NTD International Piano Competition is committed to artistic excellence that allows the 250-year legacy of piano to continue to flourish.

The finals will start this afternoon. You can watch it live streamed on NTD.com or purchase tickets at the Kaufman Center.

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