A young Taiwanese pianist, Lin Wei-chi (林瑋祺), won the 14th Interna-tional Chopin Piano Competition held in Rome on Monday.
Outplaying several good competitors from around the world, Lin, 26, was awarded the President of the Republic's Silver Cup and his winning performance was highly praised by Italian audiences.
He is the third Taiwanese pianist to win the first prize in the International Chopin Piano Competition.
The famous pianists Chen Ruei-bin (
In addition to the President's Silver Cup, Lin was awarded a Seiler piano and 1,000 euros (about NT$39,700) in cash.
As part of the winner's prize package, he will go on a concert tour of 17 European countries, including Italy, Germany, France and Belgium.
The international piano competition, conducted under the auspices of Italy's Cultural Association of Frederic Chopin, took place from Oct. 20 to Oct. 27. The competition was open to all pianists worldwide who are younger than 27.
Lin played Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor in his final round performance, which was followed by loud applause.
Lin's teacher, Wang En (王穎), was a member of the jury for the competition, but according to the rules Wang had to leave the jury panel when his student was playing.
Lin is a PhD music student at the National Taiwan Normal University's graduate school.
He has won various piano championships in Taiwan and went through to the semi-final round of Taiwan's first international piano competition, which was held earlier this month.
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