The number of pianists qualified to the main competition by the Jury of the Preliminary includes 22 Chinese, 16 Polish, 14 Japanese, 7 South Korean, 6 Italian piano players as well as pianists from Armenia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Latvia, Russia, Thailand, USA, United Kingdom and Vietnam.
Twice postponed due to the pandemic, the Preliminary of the Chopin Competition was held from 12 to 23 July 2021 in the Chamber Hall of the Warsaw Philharmonic. More than 500 pianists from all over the world applied to the musical tournament and submitted their recordings. Of their number, 164 were admitted to the Preliminary. Finally, 151 pianists have taken part in the Preliminary, and presented programmes specified in the Rules and Regulations of the Competition to the members of the jury and to the Warsaw audience. The list of participants qualified by the Jury of the Preliminary:
Leonora Armellini, Italy
J J Jun Li Bui, Canada
Michelle Candotti, Italy
Kai-Min Chang, Chinese Taipei
Junhui Chen, China
Xuehong Chen, China
Zixi Chen, China
Hyounglok Choi, South Korea
Federico Gad Crema, Italy
Aleksandra H. Dąbek, Poland
Alberto Ferro, Italy
Yasuko Furumi, Japan
Alexander Gadjiev, Italy/Slovenia
Martin Garcia Garcia, Spain
Eva Gevorgyan, Russia/Armenia
Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan, Cuba
Joanna Goranko, Poland
Chelsea Guo, U.S.A.
Eric Guo, Canada
Saaya Hara, Japan
Yifan Hou, China
Wei-Ting Hsieh, Chinese Taipei
Kaoruko Igarashi, Japan
Riko Imai, Japan
Junichi Ito, Japan
Asaki Iwai, Japan
San Jittakarn, Thailand
Jooyeon Ka, South Korea
Nikolay Khozyainov, Russia
Su Yeon Kim, South Korea
Aimi Kobayashi, Japan
Mateusz Krzyżowski, Poland
Jakub Kuszlik, Poland
Shushi Kyomasu, Japan
Hyuk Lee, South Korea
Jaeyoon Lee, South Korea
Xiaoxuan Li, China
Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu, Canada
Julia Łozowska, Poland
Xuanyi Mao, China
Tomasz Marut, Poland
Yupeng Mei, China
Arsenii Mun, Russia
Viet Trung Nguyen, Vietnam/Poland
Georgijs Osokins, Latvia
Jinhyung Park, South Korea
Yeon-Min Park, South Korea
Jiana Peng, China
Leonardo Pierdomenico, Italy
Zuzanna Pietrzak, Poland
Hao Rao, China
Yangyang Ruan, China
Sohgo Sawada, Japan
Aristo Sham, China, Hong Kong
Miyu Shindo, Japan
Talon Smith, U.S.A.
Kyohei Sorita, Japan
Szuyu Su, Chinese Taipei
Hayato Sumino, Japan
Aleksandra Świgut, Poland
Rikono Takeda, Japan
Shun Shun Tie, China
Sarah Tuan, U.S.A.
Chao Wang, China
Zitong Wang, China
Zijian Wei, China
Marcin Wieczorek, Poland
Andrzej Wierciński, Poland
Victoria Wong, Canada
Yuchong Wu, China
Lingfei (Stephan) Xie, Canada/China
Zi Xu, China
Yuanfan Yang, United Kingdom
Anastasia Yasko, Russia
Andrey Zenin, Russia
Boao Zhang, China
Yilan Zhao, China
Ziji Zhao, China
Additionally, nine pianists have qualified to the Chopin Competition bypassing the Preliminary by winning major piano competitions:
Piotr Alexewicz, Poland (1 award, All Polish Piano Competition 2020, Warsaw)
Avery Gagliano, U.S.A. (1 award, Miami 2020)
Adam Kałduński, Poland (1 award, Beijing 2019 and 2 award All Polish Piano Competition 2020, Warsaw)
Szymon Nehring, Poland (2 award, Tel-Aviv, 2017)
Evren Ozel, U.S.A. (2 award, Miami 2020)
Kamil Pacholec, Poland (2 award, Bydgoszcz, 2019)
Piotr Pawlak, Poland (1 award, Darmstadt 2017 and 2 award All Polish Competition, Warsaw 2020)
Yutong Sun, China (2 award, Santander 2018)
Tomoharu Ushida, Japan (2 award, Hamamatsu 2018)
The Polish Chopin Institute, organiser of the Chopin Competition, informs that this year’s preliminary has enjoyed record popularity among music lovers and web surfers. Despite the pandemic, the tickets to nearly all the auditions of the Preliminary sold out long ago, while the online transmissions boast more than 4 million views so far. People from all over the world have accompanied the contenders online, and have watched the videos for over 700,000 hours, which corresponds to nearly 80 years of continuous watching.
The official inauguration of the Chopin Competition is slated for 2 October and will take place at the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall. The auditions will commence on 3 and end on 20 October. The crowning of the event will be the Grand Awards Gala with a concert by the winners, which will take place on 21 October at the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera. The winner of the competition will receive the Gold Medal and the First Prize of €40,000.