CEI Piano Forum – Musical Diplomacy

Creating a meeting space between young musicians and personalities from the musical and artistic world from CEI countries and other European institutions, stimulating dialogue and comparison, creating opportunities for exchanging ideas and good practices, is the goal of the CEI Piano Forum, an event related to the PianoFVG international piano competition, directed by Davide Fregona, whose first selection phase was recently completed on the web.

The 4th edition of the Forum, created in partnership with CEI-Central European Initiative and coordinated for PianoFVG by Chiara Mutton, took place online last March 12, with the particular support of the FVG Region, the Friuli Foundation and the Municipality of Sacile, together with Musicae, the piano cultural discrict chaired by Dory Deriu Frasson. The chosen theme concerned the "Musical Diplomacy", meaning that music (and more generally culture) is a fundamental part of relations between peoples, thanks to universality of its message and the usual possibilities of contact between musicians given by their mobility for study or career reasons. Obviously the subject was chosen before the Covid-19 pandemic, however now the situation offered new points of discussion.

The panel of speakers who contributed to the Forum presented representatives of the artistic and academic world of music at European level. The conversation featured the pianist and director of PianoFVG Davide Fregona, the Spanish pianist Carles Lama, teacher and cultural promoter, founder of the music label KNS Classical, the Austrian pianist and teacher Johannes Kropfitsch, the theater director Haris Pašović, from Sarajevo, former artistic director of Mittelfest for the last three years, and the young Polish pianist Tymoteusz Jan Bies, winner of the PianoFVG 2018 Competition.

At the end of the meeting, the Jury of the PianoFVG Competition, chaired by the famous pianist Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak, dean of Slovenian pianism, announced the 7 most deserving competitors to continue the journey towards the final and the 5 special prizes.

Among them, three competitors of the CEI area have been awarded: Kostandin Tashko (Albania) "CEI-Central European Initiative" 2021 Award; Nicolas Giacomelli (Italy), for the scholarship dedicated to Giuseppe Molinari, and Mariia iudenko (Ukraine), formerly the CEI Award in 2016, today awarded for the best performance of the piece composed after 1900 (the Sonata op. 22 n.1 by A. Ginastera).

The competitors admitted to the final phase will meet in the coming months at Sacile (Italy) for the final auditions which include a performance at the Zancanaro Theater with the Romanian State Philharmonic Orchestra.

CEI CENTRAL EUROPEAN INITIATIVE: https://www.cei.int/news/9021/cei-piano-forum-celebrates-musical-diplomacy