Ekaterina Vasilyeva, a student at the Institute of Arts and Culture of Tomsk State University, was awarded the first prize of the VI Siberian International Piano Competition – 2025. This award has become the most significant for the Institute in the history of the competition. Besides, students of the Institute of Arts and Culture got second and third prizes. Ekaterina Vasilyeva and Valeria Fateeva, as the best performers of the competition, received an invitation to perform at the New Year’s concert in one of the halls of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
The Siberian International Piano Competition is held every three years, starting in 2010. Its participants are students and graduates of professional educational institutions in the field of culture, colleges and universities, students of music and art schools.
This year the event brought together 54 pianists, of which 14 participated in a distance format. These are, in particular, representatives of Kazakhstan and China. The jury consisted of outstanding musicians, performers, teachers, artists and cultural figures of Russia and foreign countries.
– We reached a certain height, and this is a victory not only for our department, but for the entire Tomsk. The jury members almost unanimously said that Tomsk had never played so well, – says Lyudmila Bulgakova, head of the Department of Instrumental Performance. – We are very glad that we have contributed to the list of achievements of Tomsk State University. At the same time, it is a responsibility and an incentive for our teachers and students – in the next competitions we should never lower the bar.
According to the rules of the competition, participants performed works for piano of a certain genre: polyphonic, virtuoso study, and for older groups – a concert study. Students could independently choose a composer and a specific work, and at the stage of auditions, many made a choice in favor of Chopin’s Etudes. At the gala concert in the main building of TSU, the audience could listen to Bach, Mendelssohn, Weber, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Debussy, Glinka, Beethoven.
After the gala concert, one of the jury members, professor at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory Vasily Shcherbakov invited Ekaterina Vasilyeva and Valery Fateeva, students of the Institute of Arts and Culture, who took first and second places, to participate in a large-scale New Year’s concert in the capital of Russia. The event will be held on December 28 and will bring together laureates of various competitions from all over Russia. Besides, a concert in the organ hall of the Tomsk Regional Philharmonic will be the award for all laureates and diploma winners of the VI Siberian International Piano Competition.
The winner of the Grand Prix following the results of the competition was the Chinese contestant – 11-year-old Eran Zhou, who played the transcendent study “Mazepa” by Franz Liszt.
– I remember another participant in the online format – a schoolgirl from Belgorod Daria Kutyreva. In the video we got for the audition, she played the piano at home. She played well, and yet we were a little surprised at her being home. Then we realized that she did not have the opportunity to record in a music school on a concert piano, since it was unsafe to leave the house. In her age group (13-16 years old), this girl took the second prize, – said Lyudmila Bulgakova.