An 18-year-old pianist from Calgary, Kevin Chen won Friday the 17e Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. The members of the jury included pianists such as Robert Levin, Janina Fialkowska, Emile Naoumoff and Noriko Ogawa and renowned pedagogues such as Arie Vardi and Yoheved Kaplinsky.
Several things are quite special in the case of Kevin Chen: the Rubinstein Competition is a competition where Bruce Liu had failed to be spotted in 2017. And in the 2023 competition, Chen beat his formidable compatriot JJ Bui, 6e Price at 17 years of the Chopin Competition in 2021 and who has not been qualified for the Final.
Even more, Kevin Chen at 18 has just won the Franz Liszt Competition in Budapest in 2021, the Geneva Competition in 2022, and the Rubinstein Competition in 2023, which is a huge achievement, especially since the Geneva Competition, in particular, revealed major pianists from Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli, its first winner, to Christian Zacharias or Nelson Goerner.
In addition to Charles Richard-Hamelin, Bruce Liu and Jan Lisiecki, we have Toni Yike Yang, 5th in the 2015 Chopin Competition, Tony Siqi Yun whom Yannick Nezet Séguin will bring to Carnegie Hall in 2024, JJ Bui, 6e of the 2021 Chopin Competition, Jaeden Izik-Dzurko winner of the Maria Canals competition in 2022 and now Kevin Chen. Perhaps others… Unheard of!
In the three rounds of the final, Chen played the Concerto No. 27 of Mozart, the 1er Concerto by Tchaikovsky and the Trio for piano, cello and clarinet of Brahms.