Canada’s Tristan Teo and Annie Zhou shine at the 2011 Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition

July, 2011 Minneapolis

The winners of the e-Piano Junior have been announced in the dramatic Awards Ceremony on Friday, July 8, 2011 from the stage of the Orchestra Hall. The Ceremony featured performances of various competitors from the earlier rounds. With a Yamaha Disklavier Pro version of the new acclaimed CFX concert grand (DCFXM4 PRO), video projector, and screen set up on stage, the audience was able to experience the same video-sync technology that was used in the Virtual Audition phase of the competition.

Canadian Prize winners:
Annie Zhou and Tristan Teo

Top L-R: Tristan Teo (14 yrs old, Vancouver BC); Aristo Sham (15 yrs old, Hong Kong-U.K.) Bottom L-R: Annie Zhou (13 yrs old, Toronto ON); Misora Ozaki (15yrs old, Japan); Su Hyeon Kim (17 yrs old, S.Korea)

The first prize went to the Hong Kong wunderkind Aristo Sham, who also captured the award for best Schubert and Variation performances. Second Prize went to Vancouver’s Tristan Teo, third prize went to South Korea’s Su Hyeon Kim fourth prize was shared by Japan’s Misora Ozaki and Toronto’s Annie Zhou. The archived videos of all solo rounds, pictures from the competition will be available on the Minnesota E-Competition website soon. MIDI files of all solo performances will be available shortly after. Please visit the website: www.piano-e-competition.com

About the E-Piano Junior Competition:
E-Piano Junior Competition offers a special opportunity for young pianists worldwide, under the age of 17, to participate in a competition of the highest artistic quality and integrity. The artistic vision is to bring young artists, with the promise of lasting and important careers in the public’s attention. These young artists represent the piano stars of tomorrow. 61 contestants representing fifteen countries have been selected from an application process to participate in the Disklavier/Video Recordings. From this recording round, 25 pianists were selected to compete live in the final rounds in Minneapolis-St Pauls. The second solo round featured 12 pianists, 9 in the third round, and 5 in the final concerto round with the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Mark Russell Smith.

Phenom Aristo Sham

About the Disklavier Video-Synchornization Records:
The vision of this international competition is to use the the very latest in technology to bring music to as wide as audience as possible.

During the Disklavier/Video recordings, the competitor’s performance is captured exactly on a Yamaha Disklavier PRO Piano by creating MIDI files with the instrument’s state of the art computer technology and advanced optical sensors. As a result, this special piano re-creates the pianist’s performance precisely. Video recordings are synchronized directly with the Disklavier PRO so that the central jury at Yamaha Artist Services Inc. in New York City, can watch the pianists as well as hear their performances live. The same recording process is also used for the live rounds where the MIDI data are stored in the competition website archives.

Click here for further information about disklavier.

About the CFX Concert Grand.
Since the unveiling in 2010, the new Yamaha super concert piano has been garnering praise all over the world by leading pianists, concert venues, piano technicians and educators. It was chosen in numerous important piano competitions including Yulianna Avdeeva’s Gold Medal performances at the 16th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw and Yeol Eum Son’s Silver Medal performances at the recent 2011 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow.
For further information, visit the website: www.cfseries.com

About Tristan Teo
Fourteen year old Tristan Teo started piano lessons at age six and now studies with Dr. Sasha Starcevich. A native of Vancouver Canada, Tristan placed first in both the Solo and Concerto Pre-college Divisions of the 2009 Kingsville International Isabel Scionti Piano Competitions in Texas; he was a prizewinner at the 2010 Cooper Piano Competition in Oberlin; and won 1st prize at the 5th Bösendorfer and Schimmel USASU International Piano Junior Competition in January 2011. Most recently, Tristan won 1st prize in both the Solo and Concerto Competitions of the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition in California. Tristan performs frequently in the Vancouver area. In his spare time, Tristan enjoys reading, building LEGO, and travelling.

Tristan Teo in performance

Annie Zhou receiving applause

About Annie Zhou
Annie Zhou has distinguished herself with consecutive first prizes at the National Finals of the Canadian Music Competitions for three years. At the age of eleven, she was a top winner at the Third Canadian Chopin Piano Competition (2010), and a gold medalist at the AADGT International Young Musicians Competition (2010). Annie made her orchestral debut when she was eight, and has performed at Carnegie Hall in New York; in Assisi and Bevagna, Italy; and on national radios in Canada. In addition to her love for music, Annie enjoys reading, drawing, skating, and skiing. Annie is a student of Marietta Orlov at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory’s Academy program for gifted young musicians.

The Minnesota Piano-e-Competition and Yamaha would like to acknowledge the support by Tom Lee Music and The Royal Conservatory for the use of their facilities in Vancouver and Toronto virtual auditions.

For further information please contact

Jun Fujimoto jfujimoto@yamaha.ca / 647-426-421