Composition
The AICPC Composition Competition was established in the lead up to the 2nd edition of the Piano Competition (2AICPC14).
​
The aim of the AICPC Composition Competition is to encourage young and early career Australian composers to engage with the music of Chopin and create a wholly original, musically rich, and pianistically challenging work for piano.
The winning piece is included as mandatory repertoire in the adult piano competition.
​
A piece of Chopin's music is chosen by the jury to act as source material for the inspiration of the new piece, and parameters are set for its use. In the first competition, the theme of the second Prelude (Op.28 No.2) was chosen and composers were asked to develop a piece based on the theme. For the second competition, Chopin's fugue was chosen (Op. ) and composers were give free reign to take any muscial element in the piece to act as their inspiration for the work.
Past Winners
Anthony Bozicevic
Winner, 1st AICPC Composition Competition
​
From Narrandera, NSW, Anthony entered the Bachelor of Music course at the Canberra School of Music in 1995, majoring in performance under the tuition of Gabor Rosza. In 1998 he completed his degree with a High Distinction. In 1999 Anthony travelled to Croatia to study piano with Marina Ambokadze and Evgeny Zarafiants at the Music Academy ‘Ino Mirkovic’ in Lovran. In 2001 he completed his Masters of Music degree with a High Distinction. On returning to Australia, Anthony joined the piano staff of the Riverina Conservatorium of Music where he established a strong piano studio and remained active as a recital soloist, chamber musician, and duo pianist. In 2008 Anthony travelled to the remote mountains of Papua New Guinea on a three-year placement as a volunteer with Palms Australia, where he taught music at Sacred Heart High School, Tapini.
Anthony's piece “Dan Gnjeva” (Day of Wrath), was included in the repertoire requirement of the Semi-Finals of the 2nd Australian International Chopin Piano Competition 2014 (2AICPC14). The piece was based around the central theme from the Prelude in A minor, Op. 28 No. 2
Kotaro Nagano performing “Dan Gnjeva (Day of Wrath)" in the semi-finals of the 2AICPC14, Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music
Chris Williams
Winner, 2nd AICPC Composition Competition
From Newcastle, NSW, Chris is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and completed a Master of Philosophy in composition at the University of Oxford in 2013. He was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and in 2015 was the inaugural Friends of the National Library of Australia Creative Arts Fellow. Previously, Williams was one of only six composers worldwide to be selected by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, then Master of the Queen's Music, to attend his Advanced Composition course at the Dartington International Summer School, England. Chris's work has been performed by The Song Company, the Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, the Cavaleri Quartet and The Australian Voices, with whom he was composer-in-residence in 2010.
​
Chris's piece “Toccare (Ricercare dopo una fuga dopo a morte)”, was included in the repertoire requirement of the Semi-Finals of the 3rd Australian International Chopin Piano Competition 2017 (3AICPC17). The piece drew inspiration from the Fugue in A minor, B. 144.
Edwin Kim performing “Toccare (Ricercare dopo una fuga dopo a morte)" in the semi-finals of the 3AICPC17, Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music
Past Jurors
Emeritus Professor Larry Sitsky AO
Juror, 1st and 2nd AICPC Composition Competition
​
Larry Sitsky, born in China of Russian-Jewish parents, traveled to Australia in 1951 and settled in Sydney. He studied piano from an early age and was granted a scholarship to the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, where he studied piano and composition, graduating in 1955. Post-graduate studies continued with the distinguished Australian pianist and teacher, Winifred Burston. In 1959 he won a scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studied with the great Egon Petri for two years. Returning to Australia, he joined the staff of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. In 1966 he was appointed Head of Keyboard Studies at the School of Music in Canberra (now part of the Australian National University), where he was later Head of Musicology, Head of Composition Studies, Head of Academic Studies and now Distinguished Visiting Fellow, as well as Emeritus Professor.
Larry Sitsky was the first Australian to be invited to the USSR on a cultural exchange visit, organized by the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1977. He has received many awards for his compositions, including the A.H.Maggs award twice: for his Violin Concerto No.1 in 1971 and the Clarinet C Concerto in 1981; the Alfred Hill Memorial Prize for his String Quartet No.1 in 1968 and a China Fellowship in 1983. His work Maherq, for bassoon, won the inaugural prize awarded by the Fellowship of Composers in 1989, and his Secret Gates of the House of Osiris won the inaugural National Critics’ Award in 1989. In 1984 he received the inaugural Australian Composer’s Fellowship presented by the Music Board of the Australia Council.
He has had works commissioned by many leading Australian and International bodies, such as the ABC, Musica Viva, the International Clarinet Society, the Sydney International Piano Competition, Flederman and the International Flute Convention. Works from the 90s include a Piano Concerto, In Pace Requiescat for voice and strings, a Trio for flute, clarinet and piano and a Book of Songs for voice and piano.
Professor Charles Bodman-Rae
Juror, 2nd AICPC Composition Competition
Charles Bodman Rae is a composer, conductor and pianist. Since 2001 he has been the Sir Thomas Elder Professor of Music at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide, where he has served as both Dean and Director. After private piano studies with Dame Fanny Waterman, founder of the Leeds International Piano Competition, he read music at Cambridge and also studied in Oxford with the composer and Messiaen scholar, Robert Sherlaw Johnson. A postgraduate scholarship from the Polish government took him to Warsaw where he was a visiting composer at the then Chopin Academy of Music (now the Fryderyk Chopin University for Music).
​
Although his Polish connections are mostly with the music of Witold Lutoslawski (his book on the latter has been through three editions and has been acknowledged through the award of the inaugural Lutoslawski Medal in 2005 and the Lutoslawski Centenary Medal in 2013), there are also some significant Chopin connections. His orchestral versions of the Prelude op.45 (in C sharp minor) and the Nocturne op.48 no.1 (in C minor) received their premieres in 2010 as part of the official Polish celebrations of the Chopin bicentenary. They were performed, recorded and broadcast by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk. Since then they have been performed by most of the major Polish orchestras. These were followed by string orchestra and string quintet versions of the Etude in E flat minor op.10 no.6 (the latter for the Australian Sring Quartet). More recently he has produced an orchestral version of Chopin's G minor Ballade op.23, written for and dedicated to Vladimir Ashkenazy.
