At just 22 years old, Manami Suzuki has made history as the first Japanese pianist to win the prestigious Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan. In addition to taking home the First Prize, Suzuki also earned the Chamber Music Prize and the Audience Prize, marking an extraordinary achievement.
The awards were presented to Suzuki by Noriko Ogawa, chair of the distinguished international jury of the 12th Hamamatsu Competition, after her captivating performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Toshiaki Umeda. This memorable performance took place on Sunday evening before a packed audience of 2,300 at the ACT CITY in Hamamatsu.
Suzuki, who is supported by the Argerich Arts Foundation in Japan and is currently in her first year of postgraduate studies in Tokyo, expressed her gratitude and excitement:
“This is a huge honour for me. I watched the 10th Hamamatsu Piano Competition on YouTube in 2018 and knew I wanted to enter it one day. I was also hugely inspired by the film based on Riku Onda’s wonderful book Honeybees and Distant Thunder, a fictional tale about a Japanese piano competition (newly-available in English). It is quite overwhelming to win, but I just want to carry on as before, practising my favourite composers – Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert – and playing as sincerely as I can.”
As the winner, Suzuki will receive ¥4,000,000 (just over £20,000), a comprehensive concert tour of Japan, and a recording on Orchid Classics, which will coincide with a recital at King’s Place, London on 23 January 2026. Further concerts are planned in Paris and Warsaw in the coming season.
The 12th Hamamatsu International Piano Competition concluded on Monday, 25 November 2024, after an intense two-week competition in which 87 pianists from around the world competed. The winners’ recital marked the official closing of the event.
Noriko Ogawa, chair of the jury, shared her thoughts on the competition:
“Following the strict rules of the competition, my colleagues on the jury were not allowed to confer with each other about the competitors. So, it was a wonderful surprise to discover that we had voted for the first Japanese winner, who has now become the first woman to win. The Hamamatsu Piano Competition is also a great showcase for the famous piano makers of Hamamatsu, the home of Yamaha and Kawai pianos. For the first time, Manami Suzuki selected the new Steinway at Act City’s concert hall. This was also the first time Steinway won the Competition!”
Final Results of the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition:
1st Prize: Chamber & Audience Prizes: Manami Suzuki (Japan)
2nd Prize: Jonas Aumiller (Germany)
3rd Prize: Kaito Kobayashi (Japan)
4th Prize: JJ Jun Li Bui (Canada)
5th Prize: Korkmaz Can Sağlam (Turkey)
6th Prize: Prize for Best Performance of Japanese New Commission: Robert Bily (Czech Republic)
The competition’s esteemed international jury, chaired by Noriko Ogawa, included renowned figures such as Hortense Cartier-Bresson, Dang Thai Son, Paul Hughes, Peter Jablonski, Momo Kodama, Ewa Kupiek, Pedja Muzijevic, Ronan O’Hora, Ilya Rashkovskiy, and Akiyoshi Sako. Over the course of the competition, the jury listened to an astonishing 70 hours of piano performances.
This year’s Hamamatsu Competition saw an impressive rise in applications, with 638 submissions—double the number received in 2018. A total of 87 pianists from 26 countries competed live in Japan, showcasing the competition’s growing international prestige.
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