2013 Competition > Keeping Up With The Play > Mon 3 June 2013 Have You Picked Your Top Six? At the end of the day our international jury will retire to decide on the top six semi-finalists to go through to Round III in Auckland. Jurors follow a strict voting procedure and do not discuss competitors. Each juror votes in confidence for his/her first choice of semi-finalist to advance to Round III and a semi-finalist may only advance by…

2013 Competition > Keeping Up With The Play > Sun 2 June 2013 Jazzing It Up With Sergey Today’s activities ended on a high note with a special jazz concert ‘Come Play With Me’ featuring 2011 winner Sergey Malov performing with the Jason Thornton Jazz Group and guest vocalist Karen Hattaway. Sergey once again showed us, and a sold out audience, his incredible talent. This year has been a year of ‘firsts’ for the competition – the first time…

2013 Competition > Keeping Up With The Play > Sat 1 June 2013 Dressing The Part We’re reaching the end of day one of the Competition and along with beautiful performances, we’ve also seen a parade of gorgeous gowns worn by our 13 female semi-finalists. While every semi-finalist has put in hours and hours of practice before they take to the stage, thought and planning has also gone into what they wear, and for the women, that means evening…

2013 Competition > Keeping Up With The Play > Sat 1 June 2013 Competition Underway Today The 2013 Michael Hill International Violin Competition gets underway this morning with the first round during which each semi-finalist plays a Bach sonata and a Mozart concerto. First to perform is Australian Sujin Park who last night told us she had hoped not to be first or last “but that’s my luck and I’m not thinking about it too much”. American semi-finalists Stephen…

2013 Competition > Keeping Up With The Play > Sat 1 June 2013 Round 1 Action We’re halfway through Round 1 of the Competition with nine of the semi-finalists having performed their solo Bach and accompanied Mozart pieces. The almost full house at the Queenstown Memorial Centre has certainly appreciated the very high level of skill shown by our competitors. New Zealand semi-finalist Natalie Lin performed this afternoon and said afterwards that she was pleased with her playing. “I…

2013 Competition > Keeping Up With The Play > Sun 2 June 2013 Catching Up with Sergey and Ben Baker We’re nearing the end of day one of Round II of the competition and thoroughly enjoying the superb playing we’re seeing and hearing, and with our LiveStream of the competition, our audience is spread around the world – already we’ve had more than 4500 views of the LiveStream channel. We popped backstage and caught Sissi Zhang heading onstage to…

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…

2013 Competition > Keeping Up With The Play > Wed 29 May 2013 There's No Business Like Snow Business 2011 competition winner Sergey Malov was delighted to hear snow was forecast for Queenstown … “maybe I will get to ski?” he asked hopefully. Sergey may not get on the slopes, but our competitors are all experiencing the winter wonderland which is Queenstown in the snow and meanwhile, we’re just pleased the weather has cleared enough to make sure everyone gets…