Taiwanese violinist Tseng Yu-chien (曾宇謙) on Wednesday won a silver medal in the violin category of the 15th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
No one won the gold medal in the prestigious competition this year.
Tseng, 20, beat contestants from Russia, Moldova, South Korea and Germany to achieve the best-ever performance for Taiwan in the competition, which is held every four years.
Photo provided by the International Tchaikovsky Competition
Four years ago, Tseng got through to the last-eight round of the competition as the youngest contestant and won a jury prize.
Tseng told reporters after the ceremony that he “had hoped, but not expected” to win and that he appreciated the recognition of the jury.
Tseng also said he was happy to win a silver medal.
Tseng said he plans to have a good rest because the process of preparing for the competition was difficult, involving rehearsals and practice every day.
For the final round, which was held over three days, each of the six violin finalists had to perform a concerto by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and one more of the candidate’s choice from a range of other composers.
Tseng, who played on Monday, chose a concerto by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.
Many of Tseng’s friends left congratulatory messages on Facebook.
“Yu-chien, we are so proud of you! Congratulations!” one of them wrote.
“You are our champion. Super!” another wrote.
“Thank you for bringing comfort to Taiwanese at such a time,” yet another said, apparently referring to a dust explosion at the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里) on Saturday last week that claimed two lives and left nearly 500 injured.
First held in 1958, the event is a classical music competition for pianists, violinists and cellists aged from 16 to 32, and vocalists aged from 19 to 32. Each category is judged and awarded separately.
It is one of the top events in the international classical music community alongside the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Poland, the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Belgium and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in the US.
In this year’s competition, three contestants in the violin category shared third place, while two contestants were awarded fourth and fifth place respectively.
In third place were Halik Kazazyan and Pavel Milyukov of Russia, along with Alexandra Conunova of Moldova. Fourth and fifth place were awarded to Clara-Jumi Kang of Germany and Bomsori Kim of South Korea respectively.
Many of the 17 judges for the competition are world-renowned violinists, including Yuri Bashmet, Salvatore Accardo, Leonidas Kavakos and Vera Tsu Weiling (徐惟聆).
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
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