VI International Competition of Pianists in the Memory of Vera Lotar-Shevchenko
(18th of June until 1st of July 2016 in Yekaterinburg, Russia)
STIPULATIONS
- Application requirements and stipulations.
- The competition will be split into two age brackets/categories:
- JUNIOR Competition: (up to the age of 19) 18 years old until eve of 19th birthday.
- MAIN Competition: (from the age of 19) No upper age limit for participants.
1.2. To participate in the competition challengers must send in an application and conduct a preliminary audition.
Applications must be sent before April, 1 2016, at the address: 119180, Russia, Moscow, Bolshaya Polyanka Street 23/3. Date will be fixed on the application according to the postal stamp. The envelope should include the following documents:
- Photocopy of passport (or birth certificate);
- Two photographs, suitable for printing reproduction, were made not earlier than 2016;
- Document from place of study (showing course and institution or specialist music schooling, in addition information about your teacher);
- Video recording on a CD (Compact Disc) with the following requirements:
- One part/composition of a classical sonata;
- One virtuoso etude;
- Choose from the playbill of rounds I and II of the competition;
- The recording should be no longer than 20 minutes;
- for graphical materials: jpg, gif, png.
- documents: pdf, doc, rtf, txt.
- archive, records: zip.
- video files: swf, fly, mpg.
- for the audio: mp3.
- JUNIOR Competition consists of II rounds: performance of two solo music programs.
- Recording should be without editing and modifications
- The program of the recording should conform to requirements of the previous preliminary audition:
MAIN Competition:
The recording should consist of a solo production of the following:
- One production from a French composer;
- The recording should be 35 minutes long;
JUNIOR Competition
The CD (recording) should be accompanied with the following information:
name and surname of the participant;
-name of productions in the order of recording;
-chronometry
-date of recording
Application can be enclosed in the following format by e-mail: veralotar2014@gmail.com
Tel. +7 (495) 729-41-52
1.3 Admittance to competition will be decided by the Organizing Committee, after receiving the recordings, no later than the April 20, 2016. All accepted participants will receive an official invitation from the committee with all the relevant information about the competition.
1.4. Documents sent partially completed or that are late, will not be reviewed.
2. Order of the competition events.
2.1. Invitations for the competition will be sent out no later than May 10, 2016.
2.2. Foreign participants are expected to complete their own visa registration. Questions regarding the registration of visas should be directed to the Russian Consulate.
2.3. All participants receiving invitations to the competition should inform the Organizing Committee by the June, 10 2016, of the following information; date of arrival, number of flight or train (carriage) which the participants will be taking to the competition.
2.4. Arrangements/performances in the competition will be conducted as follows:
- MAIN Competition consists of III rounds: - two solo music programs and final audition with an orchestra.
All auditions will be conducted in public. Music program should be executed by heart.
2.5. In the II round of JUNIOR Competition will be allowed 6 participants, In the MAIN Competition – 12 participants. In the Final of MAIN Competition there will be 6 finalists.
2.6. The order of appearance contestants determined by drawing lots before the Ist round and kept until the end of the Competition. All participants should be present at the initial assembly which will take place before the lot is drawn on the eve of the I round.
2.7. Changes in the competition music programs are not allowed.
3. Financial Conditions.
3.1. During the registration process the arrival of the Competition paid an entrance fee of 100 US dollars (the exchange rate the Central Bank of Russia). Without this entrance fee is paid entrants are not allowed to the competition audition.
There is no fee for entrants in the 'youth' category.
3.2. In the case of rejection at the audition stage documents, video files and the entrance fee will not be returned.
3.3. Winners of the MAIN Competition are required to participate free of charge in the closing concert of the Competition.
3.4. Participants in the competition will not receive any royalties for their participation in the contest or for any further use of the recordings and broadcasts of these performances. Rights to audio and video as well as television and radio broadcasts of competitive performances belong to the Organizing Committee
3.5. The Organizing Committee of the competition will provide:
- Free accommodation and meals, but not before the deadline, the date specified in the invitation;
- Group classes (at least 3 hours a day) and one rehearsal before each round on the stage, which will host the IIIrd round of the MAIN Competition
3.6. The Organising Committee will not provide participants of Competition any kind of insurance.
3.7. The application, signed by wishing to participate in the Competition, is an indication that the future party fully accepts these terms and conditions.
3.8. Contestants who have passed the qualifying round, and do not appear without explanation, to subsequent competitions are not allowed.
4. Prizes
4.1. The Organizing Committee of the International Competition of Pianists in the Memory of Vera Lotar-Shevchenko announces the following prizes:
JUNIOR Competition:
- 1st Prize – $1,500 (One thousand five hundred US Dollars)
- 2nd Prize – $1,200 (One thousand two hundred US Dollars)
- 3rd Prize - $1,000 (One thousand US Dollars)
MAIN Competition:
- 1st Prize - $10,000 (Ten thousand US Dollars)
- 2nd Prize - $7,500 (Seven thousand five hundred US Dollars)
- 3rd Prize - $5,000 (Five thousand US Dollars)
4.2. The Jury has the right to divide the prizes or not to award any of them.
4.3. All decisions of the Jury are final and not subject to revision.
4.4. Cash prizes to the winners of the contest are paid in rubbles at the rate set by the Central Bank of Russia on the day of payment.
PROGRAMME
JUNIOR Competition:
Ist round.
Duration of performance in the Competition is no more than 20 minutes.
- One prelude and one fugue by the following composers: Bach, Taneyev, Shostakovich.
- Czerny, etude from the 740th Composition.
- One etude by the following composers: Chopin, Lizst, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff.
- A piece by a 19th or 20th century French composer.
IInd round.
Duration of performance in the Competition is no more than 30 minutes.
- Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert classical sonata (1st movement).
- A Romantic piece by a Western European composer.
- A work by a composer from the entrant's own country, written after 1960.
MAIN Competition
Ist round
- Performance to be no longer than 45 minutes, not including pauses between the pieces. In the qualifying rounds of the competition video recordings of performances may be shown.
- The selection and arrangement of the performance should be conducted by the entrant them self, and should include works of various styles as well as noteworthy compositions of the Pianoforte's repertoire.
- Entrants' personal compositions may not be performed in this round of the competition.
IInd round.
- Performance to be no longer than 60 minutes, not including pauses between the pieces (If the entrant wishes there may be a break of 3-5 minutes.)
- The performance must include different styles (of which two are compulsory – a long, or one long and one medium composition, and a composition from 1960 onwards.)
- The entrant's own composition may be performed.
- Pieces from the first round may not be repeated.
III Round – Final
Finalist must perform two piano concerts (one from Group “A” and one from group “B”), accompanied by a symphony orchestra. The conductor and the orchestra will be indicated in the invitation to bidders. Also available to play concerts are not included in the mandatory list. To this end, the contestant must obviously apply to the Organizing Committee.
Group “A”:
- Mozart. Any of his piano concerti (except KV.37,39,40,41 and 107)
- Beethoven.
- Concerto No. 1 C major, composition 15
- Concerto No. 2 B flat major, composition 19
- Concerto No. 3 C minor, composition 37
- Concerto No. 4 G major, composition 58
- Concerto No. 5 E flat major, composition 73
Group “B”:
- Chopin. Concerto No. 1 E minor, composition 11.
- Liszt. Concerto No. 2 A major.
- Brahms. Concerto No.1 D minor, composition 15.
- Saint-Saëns. Concerto No.2 G minor, composition 22.
- Grieg. Concerto A minor.
- Tchaikovsky. Concerto No.2 G major, composition 44.
- Rachmaninoff. Concerto No.1 F sharp minor, composition 1.
- Scriabin. Concerto F sharp minor.
- Prokofiev. Concerto No.3 E major, composition 26.
- Ravel. Concerto G major.
* * *
Application can be enclosed in the following format by e-mail: veralotar2014@gmail.com
Tel. +7 (495) 729-41-52
Application requirements and stipulations in Russian
Lotar-Shevchenko biography
The pianist Vera Lotar was born in 1901 in Turin. Her parents were high school teachers, her father taught mathematics. Her mother — languages and literature. They later both lectured at the Sorbonne.
Vera later confirmed that she had been learning music, ‘as far back as she can remember’. Her family were serious academics, music and literature their main pastime. At twelve Vera had already joined the Arturo Toscanini’s orchestra. She became Alfred Korto's pupil in Paris and shared her teacher's affection for Chopin and Debussy music. Vera graduated from Korto's class and entered the Vienna Academy of Music where she enlarged her ever growing repertoire. From then on was besotted by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Ludwig van Beethoven's portrait forever stood on her piano.
In Paris she married a soviet trade mission official and in 1938 the couple immigrated to the Soviet Union. Her welcome was totally in accordance with the macabre fame this year has left in the history of our country. Thanks to her famous friend soviet pianist Maria Veniaminovna Yudina, she managed to confirm her status as a performer and started working in the State Filarmonia of Leningrad.
However due to the powers in charge her husband was arrested, shortly followed by her own sentencing for 13 years in Stalin's gulag. Innocent she spent her term in Sahalinlag and Severurallag.
All these long years the keyboard cut out of a plank from her bed with a kitchen knife was her only musical instrument. Vera played this silent piano during her rare free moments. She held these extraordinary concerts for the other female prisoners who were shocked by her devotion to music They were mesmerised by her fingers playing the most unusual musical instrument of XX century. Fingers tortured by the hard work of the Gulags.
After her release from the camp she worked as a leading pianist in Nizhnii musical theatre. It was in this theatre where the famous Russian film director Vladimir Motyl staged his first projects.
Later she lived in Barnaul. In mid seventies of the last century on invitation by the president of the Siberian branch of Soviet Academy of Science she moved to Novosibirsk and became a soloist of the Novosibirsk state philharmonic society.
Vera Lotar-Shevchenko became an active performer. She played in Moscow, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Odessa, Omsk, Sverdlovsk. She worked incredibly hard, performing her favorites — Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy. Her real triumph came from her performances of all Sonatas and Concertos N°5 of L.v.Beethoven with the orchestra of the Novosibirsk state philharmonic society conducted by Vassilii Sinaisky.
Although she had a chance to return to France she always rejected: ‘It would be treachery to the memory of those russian women who helped me during that infernal term in prison.’
She is buried in the Southern cemetery of Novosibirsk. Vera's own words are on her gravestone read: ‘Blessed is life with the music of Bach.’
VI International Competition of Pianists in the Memory of Vera Lotar-Shevchenko web-site
