Pianists throughout the world are being encouraged to participate in the first Taiwan-sponsored international piano competition. The Leschetizky International Piano Competition, to be held from Dec. 9 to Dec. 20 at Taichung's Chungshan Hall, will accept applications until the end of this month.
Leschetizky (1830-1915), an Austrian pianist, was a legendary figure, often dubbed the greatest pianist of the 20th century. His student, pianist Peter Ritzen, will chair of the jury panel for the competition.
Three main prizes worth NT$300,000, NT$240,000 and NT$150,000 will be awarded to the three best laureates, who will also win a piano recital in Vienna. The first prize recipient will also be invited to launch a CD on Naxos, a leading classical music label. Other special prizes will be given to semifinalists and finalists, such as the Best Public Performer's prize and the Best Leschetizky Performer's prize.
The sponsor of the competition -- the Renaissance Music Society (文藝復興音樂聯盟) -- has invited musicians from Taiwan and abroad to serve as the jury for the competition. Local pianists Rolf-Peter Wille, Constance Lee, Zhu Da-ming and Francis Wu will be joined by overseas musicians, including the former dean of the Moscow State Conservatory, Sergei Dorensky; Juilliard School professor Jacob Lateiner; French pianist Bernard Ringeissen; and Polish pianist Andrzej Jasinski.
For more information, visit the society's Web site at http://www.rms.com.tw, or contact the society at 886-2-2809-1733.
Taiwan has next to no political engagement in Myanmar, either with the ruling military junta nor the dozens of armed groups who’ve in the last five years taken over around two-thirds of the nation’s territory in a sprawling, patchwork civil war. But early last month, the leader of one relatively minor Burmese revolutionary faction, General Nerdah Bomya, who is also an alleged war criminal, made a low key visit to Taipei, where he met with a member of President William Lai’s (賴清德) staff, a retired Taiwanese military official and several academics. “I feel like Taiwan is a good example of
March 2 to March 8 Gunfire rang out along the shore of the frontline island of Lieyu (烈嶼) on a foggy afternoon on March 7, 1987. By the time it was over, about 20 unarmed Vietnamese refugees — men, women, elderly and children — were dead. They were hastily buried, followed by decades of silence. Months later, opposition politicians and journalists tried to uncover what had happened, but conflicting accounts only deepened the confusion. One version suggested that government troops had mistakenly killed their own operatives attempting to return home from Vietnam. The military maintained that the
“M yeolgong jajangmyeon (anti-communism zhajiangmian, 滅共炸醬麵), let’s all shout together — myeolgong!” a chef at a Chinese restaurant in Dongtan, located about 35km south of Seoul, South Korea, calls out before serving a bowl of Korean-style zhajiangmian —black bean noodles. Diners repeat the phrase before tucking in. This political-themed restaurant, named Myeolgong Banjeom (滅共飯館, “anti-communism restaurant”), is operated by a single person and does not take reservations; therefore long queues form regularly outside, and most customers appear sympathetic to its political theme. Photos of conservative public figures hang on the walls, alongside political slogans and poems written in Chinese characters; South
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) announced last week a city policy to get businesses to reduce working hours to seven hours per day for employees with children 12 and under at home. The city promised to subsidize 80 percent of the employees’ wage loss. Taipei can do this, since the Celestial Dragon Kingdom (天龍國), as it is sardonically known to the denizens of Taiwan’s less fortunate regions, has an outsize grip on the government budget. Like most subsidies, this will likely have little effect on Taiwan’s catastrophic birth rates, though it may be a relief to the shrinking number of
RSS