It is tonight 7 p.m. at Église Immaculée-Conception that a prestigious jury will listen the first four of twenty contestants of the  Canadian International Organ Competion. Held every three years, the Competition rewards excellence in organ playing but also holds annual events that include educative ventures, designed for a large audience. A donation of 10 $ is suggested for those who wish to attend the event.

Performing tonight are Jean-Willy Kunz (France), David Baskeyfield (United Kingdom), Jens Korndörfer (Germany) and Ryan Enright (Canada).

Details here…

Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov seems to be on a roll: after  winning the Rubinstein Masters at the end of May, he is now the star of the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. At the ripe age of 20, he has quickly become one of the most interesting pianists of his generation and sky seems to be the limit from now on.

In 2010, Trifonov was as well a medalist of the XVI International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, where he won Third Prize and the Special Prize of Polish Radio for the best mazurkas performance. In Tel-Aviv, he also received the Pnina Salzman Prize for the Best Performer of a Chopin piece, the Prize for the Best Performer of Chamber Music and the Audience Favorite Prize . In Moscow last week, Trifonov was awarded the coveted First Prize, Gold Medal, and Grand Prix, as well as the Audience Award and the Award for the Best Performance of a Chamber Concerto. Impressive!

Last night, as part of the gala concert of the 100th Prix d’Europe, we heard the winners of the TD Bank Prizes ($5 000) in the four categories of the competition: voice, winds and percussion, piano and strings. Soprano Andréanne Paquin was very convincing in her Mozart, violinist Victor Fournelle-Blain demonstrated remarkable virtuosity in Waxman’s Carmen Fantaisie and percussionist Isabelle Tardif captivated in Canadian composer Harry Freedman’s Bones.

But in the end, there was only one big winner, who left with the $25 000 grand prize: pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin, second prize winner at the International Steppingstone, first prize winner at the Concours de l’ARAM and first prize winner of McGill Orchestra’s Concerto Competition last year. The young pianist will be starting his Masters degree in the fall at the Yale School of Music. Congrats to all!

The finals of the 100th edition of the Prix d’Europe were held yesterday at Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur. After the finalists’ recitals, audience was expecting to hear the name of the winner, quite obviously, but that did not happen. Instead, the jury revealed the names of the four still considered, all to perform tomorrow at the gala concert at salle Claude-Champagne.

They are: soprano Andréanne Paquin, pianistCharles Richard-Hamelin, violinist Victor Fournelle-Blain and percussionist Isabelle Tardif. All will receive 5000 $ from TD Bank. The grand prize winner will receive 30 000 $. We’ll keep you posted.

The Montreal International Musical Competition is now officially over and the candidates will be back home in the next few hours or so. For the audience, the weaning is just starting. No more piano extravaganza and lively exchanges post- performance for us.

Good news nevertheless, if you missed one or two of the finalists live, you can access their performance online for the next year at this address.