PETALING JAYA: Penang-born classical pianist Vincent Ong has made Malaysian music history after being jointly awarded fifth prize at the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland.
The 24-year-old is the first Malaysian to reach the finals of the prestigious five-yearly competition.
The results were announced early today (Malaysia time) following the final concerto performances in Warsaw and hours of deliberation by a 17-member international jury chaired by American pianist Garrick Ohlsson.
The winner of this year’s competition received €60,000 (about RM305,000) and a gold medal funded by the President of Poland.
Ong shared fifth prize with Poland’s Piotr Alexewicz, while Eric Lu of the United States took first place, Kevin Chen of Canada second and Zitong Wang of China third. Fourth prize went jointly to Tianyao Lyu of China and Shiori Kuwahara of Japan, while William Yang of Australia placed sixth.
On the official Vincent Ong Music Project page, administered by his mother Sue Sudarak, she wrote: “A huge bonus for Vincent to get the 5th Prize. He aimed only to reach the finals. Well done, Vincent! We are really proud of him and truly love his music!”
The competition offers a total prize fund of more than €240,000 (about RM1.22 million), with €60,000 (about RM305,000) going to the top winner.
Laureates will also embark on international concert tours, performing at some of the world’s most renowned venues.
Each of the eleven finalists was required to perform the Polonaise-Fantasy, Op. 61, and one of Chopin’s two concertos — E minor Op. 11 or F minor Op. 21 — accompanied by the Warsaw Philharmonic under Andrzej Boreyko.
Ong told the media on Oct 15 that the most demanding part of the competition was not the repertoire but coping with the flood of reviews, opinions and even compliments, which he said could at times feel overwhelming. “Still, it is an important personal experience,” he said.
He also dismissed suggestions that his playing was nonchalant, saying he pays close attention to the sound and responds to it as it develops. “Some may mistake this awareness for detachment,” he told the Polish Press Agency, Poland’s national news agency and a media partner of the competition.
A former winner of the 19th International Robert Schumann Competition and a fellow of the Lieven International Piano Foundation in Vienna, Ong currently teaches at the Märkisch-Oderland District Music School in Petershagen, Berlin.
He showed musical promise from the age of four after enrolling at Penang’s Digital Music Academy and later trained under Malaysian pianist Ng Chong Lim before continuing his studies in Germany with Eldar Nebolsin.
This year’s competition drew 642 applicants, with 162 shortlisted and 84 advancing to the main rounds. Among them, 66 qualified through preliminaries while 19 gained direct entry as winners of other major competitions. The participants, born between 1995 and 2009, were mostly from China, Poland and Japan.
The nearly century-old competition, inspired by the spirit of the Olympic Games, is named after Polish composer Frederic Chopin. It is held every five years in Warsaw around 17 October, the anniversary of Chopin’s death.
Widely regarded as the world’s most prestigious event for young concert pianists, the Chopin competition has launched the careers of legends including Martha Argerich, Krystian Zimerman and Seong-Jin Cho.
