Enroll in the Festival for Creative Pianists Today!

AWARD INFORMATION

All participants, all ages, will be recognized with one special, individually tailored award certificate to honor their finest achievement.

Our uniquely diverse awards celebrates standard baroque through contemporary repertory as well as neglected, yet important, skills -- e.g., improvisations (any style), original concerto cadenzas & classical embellishing (demonstrated by most of history's greatest composers yet seldom seen today), versatility (needed to thrive in today's competitive market), lyricism (usually overshadowed by "loud and fast" playing), original compositions (too few venues exist for young serious composers), works by female composers (underrepresented elsewhere), and tasteful arrangements & transcriptions (often disallowed in other events).

To qualify for awards, participants must:

Submit recorded performance videos for the virtual festival

Participate in at least one online learning activity for the virtual festival

Record and submit "Best Of" selection to be shared online with fellow festival participants

At the Festival for Creative Pianists, we seek to foster diverse and well-rounded musicianship that goes beyond the "autonomic wizardry" that is often overemphasized in other competitions.

Above all, pianists and composers are urged to develop and showcase their unique creative talents and perform with individuality, personality, exuberance, originality, and spontaneity.

PIANIST AWARDS

COMPOSER AWARDS

Festival teaching artists and directors will choose up to 3 written compositions to be performed at a culminating event at the end of each festival.

Festival directors and teaching artists will place all written compositions into the appropriate level listed below. All students who are accepted to the festival will submit their work using the OpenLearning platform.

COMPOSER FEEDBACK

SUBMIT YOUR WRITTEN COMPOSITION DURING THE FESTIVAL!

All Festival for Creative Pianist participants have the option to submit a written composition for additional feedback! Participants in all age categories will be able to submit their written composition as an assignment in our new online learning portal. A composition educator will provide feedback and comments on the work. Up to one winning work will be chosen from each of these five categories:

Piano Discovery
Piano Foundations
Piano Craft
Piano Artistry
Piano Mastery

The participant who is chosen in each of these five categories will be awarded a private follow-up revision lesson with the Abundant Silence Featured Composition Educator, Martha Hill Duncan!

MORE AWARDS

A FEW NOTES ♫

Teaching artists may, at their discretion:

Offer award recognitions not listed below
Present more than one of the same award to different participants
Not confer some of the awards

We are grateful to all of our generous award sponsors! Many of these festival awards are sponsored by an individual who has a special affinity for a creative musical skill. We appreciate their dedication and commitment to helping others develop creative skills at the piano.

THANK YOU TO OUR GENEROUS AWARD SPONSORS