Pianists to Show Off Their Talents at Bartók World Competition

The Franz Liszt Academy of Music announced that from March 3 to May 26, pianists under the age of 32 can apply for the 2025 Bartók World Competition Budapest.

The competition, which has a total prize money of over 51,000 euros (20 million forints), will focus on the piano works of Béla Bartók, one of the most significant Hungarian composers of the 20th century. The 2025 round of the Bartók World Competition Budapest, which was launched by the Liszt Academy in 2017, and has been awarded membership of the World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC), is once again being supported by the Hungarian state, reads the Academy’s press release.

The competition’s portal will be open to applications between March 3 and May 26 for talented pianists under 32 years of age, and

a jury of eminent teachers from the institution will select up to 35 candidates for the live rounds based on the videos submitted.

Live rounds will run from August 31 to September 7, at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. A special feature of the competition is that two winning pieces of last year’s event are also included in the compulsory repertoire. This time, two pieces from the 2024 Composition Round, Lee Hanuri’s Vertigineux (Vertiginous) and Mátyás Papp’s Kirakós (Jigsaw) will be compulsory to perform in the semi-finals.

The live rounds will be open to the public and will be streamed online.

The compulsory repertoire will focus on Bartók’s most important works for piano, that are required to be performed in all rounds. Competitors will also have to demonstrate their skills by playing works by Liszt, Kodály, Dohnányi, Scarlatti, Ravel, Debussy, Scriabin, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky.

In the finals, the contestants will choose between Bartók’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3, Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 5, Liszt’s Totentanz (Dance of the Dead) and Piano Concerto in E-flat Major, which will be performed accompanied by the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by János Kovács.

Prizes of the competition:

1st prize: EUR 22,000

2nd prize: EUR 14,000

3rd prize: EUR 8,000

Several special prizes will also be awarded, with EUR 4,000 for the best Bartók interpretation, EUR 2,000 for the best performer of contemporary compositions, and EUR 1,500 for the audience prize winner. In addition, a number of national institutions will offer an opportunity to perform to the best artists.

The international jury will consist of nine members, five foreign and four Hungarian professionals. The selection of the members is underway and the organizer will shortly publish the list of names.

In previous Bartók World Competitions, the jury has included artists such as Kenji Watanabe, Tamás Vásáry, and Andrei Korobeinikov, and world-renowned British composer Thomas Adés.

In conjunction with the competition, the Liszt Academy’s Central European Music History Research Group is organizing its second international conference. Further information can be found on the competition’s website.

Festival Dedicated to World-famous Pianist György Cziffra