Samson François International Piano Competition

30/01/2025

Very happy to announce the jurys for the next Samson François International Piano Competition .

One of the greatest pianist of our time, Artur Pizarro, will chair the jury in the Artist Category.

No students from jury members are allowed to take part.

See you soon on the French Riviera!

19/10/2024

Merci à Philippe Cassard pour cette émission « Hommage à Samson François et retour sur le Concours 2024 », aujourd’hui sur France Musique à 14h.

Dmytro Semykras - Pianist
German Skripachev
Daniel Streicher

31/07/2024

25/07/2024

Today, 25.7, at 9PM, our laureate of the 2nd Edition, Ukrainian pianist Mykhailo Diordiiev, is performing a recital in Tourrettes-sur-Loup!
Free entrance

20/07/2024

Wonderful recital of Julian Kainrath and Dmytro Semykras, the winner of the 3rd Samson François International Piano Competition during the Estivales in Cannes! Standing ovations!

13/07/2024

The Winner of the Grand Prix Samson François 2024, Dmytro Semykras, gives a recital on 20th of July in Cannes. Free entry.

11/07/2024

07/07/2024

Final concert of the Forum Grands Amateurs of the Samson François International Piano Competition! We had two wonderful intensive days of the masterclass with Nicolas Bringuier and Olga Monakh, a conference, lunch all together and unforgettable moments!

Stay in touch ❤️

06/07/2024

The forum of GRAND AMATEURS begins today! During the weekend non professional pianist of very high level have a possibility to have a masterclass with Nicolas Bringuier and Olga Monakh, participate at the conference, have lunch together and play a final concert!

05/07/2024

Nous remercions de tout coeur les familles cagnoises et niçoises pour avoir accueilli plusieurs candidat.e.s du Concours qui ont demandé du soutien! Un grand merci pour la coordination et aide à Jean Denis Ricci et les membres de l’orchestre Symphonique des Arts de Vence, à Nataliya Dubosq et la famille Waechter!
Pour remercier les familles Les Nocturnes du Piano leurs a offert l’entrée pour les récitals du festival.
Écrivez-nous si vous souhaitez rejoindre notre réseau de bénévoles du Concours pour notre prochaine édition!

05/07/2024

Every important competition requires a very intensive preparation, to be able to show the personal best at that precise moment on stage. Every of us knows, how big is the stress and how much pressure, while you are competing. As artistic directors we wanted to choose the best voting system, which would reflect the opinion of every juror, and be absolutely transparent. Together with Philippe Cassard we developed a unique voting system, which we would like to share with you now.

In the ARTISTS category we had only one Grand Prix and several special prizes. In order to be as objective as possible we established several rules:
-no students of jury members participating at the ARTISTS category
-no discussion at all about the participants during the competition between jury members

We had several rounds of voting and two systems at the same time:

-during the whole competition every juror gave points from 1 to 20 to each contestant and gave this formular as soon as the last candidate finished playing (no correction possible after knowing votes of other jurors)

-FIRST vote for the Grand Prix:
Every jury member just wrote ONE name, of his winner. The rule was, that if one candidate has 5 votes or more (we were 8 jury members), he will be the winner.

The votes were very clear:
5 votes for SEMYKRAS Dmytro
2 votes for FINNSDOTTIR Asta Dora
1 vote for STREICHER Daniel

-SECOND round of voting was for special prizes:
Every jury member puts one name for each prize:

Cadenza prize: unanimously Daniel STREICHER

FAURÉ prize:
first vote: no absolute majority:
3 votes Bella SCHÜTZ
3 votes ZHANG Zhiqiao
1 vote LEE Chang Gyu
1 vote HAISMANN Julie

Second vote between Bella SCHÜTZ and ZHANG Zhiqiao:
5 votes ZHANG Zhiqiao
3 votes Bella Schütz

Chopin Prize:
6 votes FINNDOTTIR Asta Dora
1 vote Bella SCHÜTZ
1 vote LIU Yongqiu

French music prize given by Philippe Cassard:
Unanimously SKRIPACHEV German.

-Second part of decision: we counted all the points given in order to see, who was the best placed pianist after the prize winners to get the recital invitation:

146 points SEMYKRAS Dmytro

131 points FINNSDOTTIR Asta Dora
131 points SKRIPACHEV German
131 points STREICHER Daniel

116 points OJIRO Anna

We hope to give you an idea, how responsible and opened we were during the competition.

Every jury member had a possibility to follow with score on his device or with scores brought by contestant.

Every contestant can ask for feedback by mail.

Many thanks to my colleagues Philippe Cassard and Nicolas Bringuier for our numerous exchanges to develop this process of votes, which you can see, gave the same and very clear result with different voting systems.

04/07/2024

Winners ARTISTS category (under 32 y.o.):

🏆Grand Prix Samson François 5000€:
Recital Estivales 1100€:

Dmytro SEMYKRAS, Ukraine/Austria

🏅Special Prize for the best interpretation of the cadenza of Samson François, 1000€:
Recital Estivales 1100€:

Daniel STREICHER, Germany/Hungary

🏅Special Prize for the best interpretation of French music, 500€:
Recital Estivales 1100€:

German SKRIPACHEV, Russian Federation

🏅Special Prize for the best interpretation of nocturne de Gabriel Fauré, 500€:
Special Prize recital Bernard Olivieri, 800€:

Zhiqiao ZHANG, China

🏅Special Prize for the interpretation of Chopin, 500€:
Recital Estivales 1100€:

Asta Dora FINNSDOTTIR, Island

🏅Special Prize, recital Château Grimaldi, 800€:

Anna OJIRO, Japon

KAWAI France MUSIC 3000 Les Nocturnes du Piano Ville de Cagnes-sur-Mer Département des Alpes-Maritimes Région Sud Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

04/07/2024

Today's streaming link

CatégorieARTIST

03/07/2024

Beautiful moments of the first day of the final of the ARTIST category! Tomorrow 10 more selected candidates will perform their recitals im the salle Massèna of the Hippodrome de la Côte d’Azur! Free entrance for the public (please do not enter during the performances, wait for the break between candidates to enter the hall).
Announcement of the results at 20:30.

03/07/2024

Live stream

Catégorie ARTIST