Organ option for concerto contest | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

Performances for the 38th National Concerto Competition being held in Christchurch this week will break new ground. As well as performances on the piano, the competition will include, for the first time, those played on a pipe organ.

The 23 musicians, all aged under 25, come from all over New Zealand and will be involved in preliminary sessions, the first starting at 1pm tomorrow, Thursday.

The contestants will play up to 20 minutes of their chosen concerto, on either the Steinway piano in the Chapel of the Music Centre, or on the main organ in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament.

Each soloist will be accompanied by a keyboard version of the concerto.

This year there will be a panel of three adjudicators. They are: Wendy Lorenz, the head of music at the University of Southern Queensland; Diane Selmon, piano and accompaniment lecturer at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, Brisbane; and David Brock, from Trinity College of London.

From the preliminaries six contestants will be selected for the semi-finals where they will repeat their performances.

The semi-finals will be held on Friday from 7.30pm at the Music Centre Chapel. If there is an organist in the selection, the audience will move over to the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament next door. The public is invited to attend all sessions.

Entry to the preliminary sessions costs 5$ per session.

Entry to the semi-finals is $10 (waged) and $8 (unwaged).

Three of the semi-finalists will then be selected to perform in the finals, which will be held in the town hall, accompanied by the Christchurch Symphony, on March 5 next year.