<<  -- 2 --  Malcolm Miller    BEETHOVEN WINNERS

The second session featured the Japanese pianist Yoko Misumi (Trinity College of Music) in an ebullient and crystalline rendition of the Sonata Op 2 No 2 in A, followed by a purposeful Sonata Op 10 No 3 in D, played by Anastasia Chernysheva (Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama), originally from St Petersburg, and an impressively dynamic Sonata Op 53 Waldstein by the Romanian Diana Zavalas (Birmingham Conservatoire).

The final session began with a finely honed and beautifully textured account of the Sonata Op 109 in E by the Japanese pianist Saki Hosoda (Royal Academy of Music), and the winner's exciting, dramatic performance of the Sonata Op 111, in which the colours and sonorities of the final variations were both keenly controlled and enthralling. His decision to follow his sonata with the Bagatelle rather than precede it (as had done all the other pianists) proved to be effective, both making the sonata's start more impressive and highlighting the continuity in Beethoven's late-period style.

During the award ceremony, the Master of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, John Fowler, awarded Shilayev the Company's Beethoven Medal, while the cash award was offered by its donor Eugenie Maxwell of Blüthner Pianos. All competitors received publisher's music vouchers and copies of Piano Journal and the BPSE journal Arietta. Shilayev's powerful performance of Beethoven's last sonata, extraordinary for one so young, was awarded the audience prize, which entails a professional engagement in recital at Hurstwood Farm invited by Richard Dain. All three prize winners receive recitals as part of the BPSE series in the summer of 2006, for which details will be announced on BPSE publicity and the new website at www.bpse.org.

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