The Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition & Festival and Young Lev Competition 2024
This year is the 25th anniversary of the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition & Festival. The competition has brought together an extraordinary collection of talented young pianists from Australia and New Zealand.
Hosted by the Lev Vlassenko Piano Academy, the festival includes both the Lev Vlassenko Piano competition, and the Young Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition for pianists aged 12 to 17. In addition to these competitions, the festival includes masterclasses and recital performances by international jurors Barry Douglas CBE, Jania Aubakirova, and Etsuko Terada.
Kawai is the original piano partner of the first Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition hosted in 1999. We’re proud to return as the official piano partner for the Lev’s 25th anniversary, with our world-renowned Shigeru Kawai SK-EX concert grand piano chosen as the competitions’ official piano. The Lev Vlassenko competition was founded in Australia by our friends Natasha Vlassenko OAM and Oleg Stepanov, who are remain the competition’s Artistic Directors. Read Natasha and Oleg’s Guest article on Overcoming Musical Plateaus.
The 2024 competition had it’s opening concert on July 5th and was followed by semi-finals, masterclasses and recital performances starting on July 6th, with grand finals to be held on July 13th at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University.
Meet the Lev and Young Lev Finalists
Congratulations to all the talented pianist who have been selected to compete in this year’s Grand Finals.
Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition Finalists
Reuben Tsang
Samuel Hand
Joshua Han
Young Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition
Jeffrey Dong
Eric Neumann
Elton Sun
All finalists will performing along side the Queensland Symphony Orchestra at the Queensland Conservatorium on the 13th of July.
We’re thrilled to see Rueben Tsang among the 2024 Lev Competition finalists. We met Rueben at the very first Little Lev Masterclass in 2016, where he gave his first performance at age 12. In the years that followed Rueben has gone on to compete and perform on concert stage across Australia and around the world. In many ways Reuben’s journey exemplifies why it’s so important for organisations like the Lev Vlassenko Academy to run programs (Little Lev Academy) that encourage and nurture young pianists to help them meet their full musical potential.
Good luck to all finalist!
If you would like to attend the Grand Final in-person at the Queensland Conservatorium you can find tickets and details here.
This year’s Grand Final will also be livestreamed for free. Watch the Finals Online for Free here.
Shigeru Kawai SK-EX Full Concert Grand Piano at The Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition & Festival and Young Lev Competition 2024
Kawai Australia is proud to have played a vital role in helping to establish both the first Lev Vlassenko piano competition in 1999, and the creation of the Little Lev Adacmey program started in 2016. As a collective with both a passion and love for piano music, we are constantly looking for new ways to support young pianists who share our love of this very special instrument and it’s rich legacy.
Our Shigeru Kawai SK-EX Concert grand piano was unveiled in 2001 as the flagship instrument of the Shigeru Kawai line, the SK-EX concert grand piano is hand-crafted in limited numbers following a unique ‘prototyping’ creation process. In order to achieve the supreme range of expression required in a concert piano, each instrument utilises a variety of carefully selected materials, with premium aged spruce soundboards. Shigeru Kawai instruments adopt the advanced Millennium III keyboard action, featuring extended wooden keys and advanced ABS Carbon action parts, providing superior speed and responsiveness than conventional wooden action parts, allowing pianists to express a greater range of feeling and emotion in their performance.
