2013 Competition > Keeping Up With The Play > Fri 31 May 2013

Competition Count Down

Excitement is building in Queenstown as we near the start of the first round of this year’s Competition. All our 18 wonderful semi-finalists have been rehearsing and trying out the acoustics of the Queenstown Memorial Hall where the first two rounds take place.

They’ve also had the chance to enjoy the beauty of the Queenstown area which is simply breathtaking – Belgian semi-finalist Eugenia Ryabinina got among the wolves at The Hills’ sculpture park (‘The wolves are coming by Liu Ruowang’).

Yesterday, as part of the Competition’s ‘Classroom Conversations’ series, school students had the chance to hear some of our competitors and have questions answered by 2011 winner Sergey Malov and New Zealand Development Prize winner Ben Baker. Alison Price from Whakatipu High School said her students don’t have a lot of exposure to classical music and really appreciated the skills on display.

And while the competitors have been busy, there’s been plenty happening behind the scenes as we prepare to bring you the best experience of the Competition ever. We’re LIVE streaming all rounds of the Competition so whether you’re with us in Queenstown, in Auckland anticipating Round 3 and the Final or one of our many followers around the world, you can tune in and be part of the action. Details for how to access the live streaming will be on our homepage tomorrow.

Today we formally welcome all 18 of our semi-finalists and the draw will be made determining the order… who will be up first? We’ll let you know right away.

And tonight, we’re all looking forward to a very special Welcome Back Winner recital with Sergey Malov and accompanied by Sarah Watkins. Sergey is incredibly talented and we love having him back in New Zealand, and this time he brought his mum, Klara.