A total of 42 pianists from 16 countries are participating in the 61st Jaén International Piano Competition

Francisco Reyes highlighted the prestige and international renown of this contest, which this year will be held between April 24 and May 3 distributing 60,000 euros in prizes

The Infanta Leonor Theatre will host tomorrow, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., a new edition of the Piano Marathon organised by the City Council as a prelude to the Jaén International Piano Competition, which will be held this year between April 24 and May 3. A total of 624 musicians of all ages will take part in the seventeenth edition of an activity that continues to beat its record of participants year after year.

Francisco Reyes, who has been accompanied in this act by the Councillor for Culture of the City of Jaén, Isabel Azañón, and the new secretary of the “Jaén” International Piano Contest, Ernesto Rocío -which this year has replaced Pedro Jiménez, to whom the President of the Provincial Council has “recognised and congratulated for his work for so many years in this contest” -, has highlighted that with the celebration of this event “Jaén will again become the world capital of the piano, both because we will have some of the the most promising performers in the world as well as the presence of the player who is opening, Josep Colom, one of the most important Spanish pianists today “.

All this allows this piano event “to be one of the most renowned in the world,” as Reyes stressed, who also highlighted that this reputation “is based largely on the care, the attention and the exquisite treatment that is given from the organisation to the participants in the prize, who become year after year great ambassadors of our land. But also, as the president of the City Council has added, “in the rigour and seriousness of an international jury that will once again be presided over by the Spanish pianist Albert Attenelle, and which will be composed by other great interpreters from Spain, Japan, Bulgaria and Germany. ”

This jury will be the one to decide which contestants overcome the different eliminatory phases that make up an award that will be held on May 3 at the Infanta Leonor Theatre with the accompaniment of the “Ciudad de Granada” Orchestra. As every year, the final number of participants will be known after the intervention draw, which will take place on April 24 and which will allow, next to the opening concert, “to raise the curtain of a musical event of the first order that allows that all the keys of the world to sound in Jaén “, said Reyes.

During the days in which this competition is held, the pianists will face some of the tests that, in the opinion of the president of the City Council, “make this contest so unique, as the interpretation of the mandatory work, which this year has the title “Jaenera. Ecos y temple “, created expressly for our pianistic contest by the composer from Valencia Jorge Sastre, or the phase that is carried out by chamber music with the presence of the prestigious Bretón Quartet”.

The interpreters who enter the final of May 3 will be fighting for the 60,000 euros with which this 61st edition of the “Jaén” Piano Competition is awarded. Both the first prize, worth 20,000 euros, and the second, with 12,000, are sponsored by the City Council. The third classified will get 8,000 euros, contributed by the Unicaja Jaén Foundation, while the winners of the Contemporary and Spanish music Awards – sponsored by INAEM and Jaén City Hall, respectively – will be granted 6,000 euros. Finally, the winner of the last of the awards that was created, the Chamber Music Award, will be given another 8,000 euros.

“Talking about Jaén is talking about piano, we are a world reference”, insisted Reyes, who also recalled the recent “success of the II Piano Festival, both for the eleven quality performances that included the programme and the 3,200 registered spectators “or the new record of participants in the Piano Marathon that was held this week, with more than 620 people of all ages playing this instrument for 12 uninterrupted hours.