# Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition

The Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition is a music competition for young pianists that takes place in Bolzano, Italy. It was founded in 1949 by Cesare Nordio in memory of the pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni.

## History

The first Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition was organized by Cesare Nordio in 1949 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the death of the pianist and composer. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was a supporter of the competition and was a member of the inaugural jury. Alfred Brendel won the 4th prize in this competition. For a few years a piano composition competition took place together with the piano competition.
In 1956, the young Maurizio Pollini took part in the competition, performing the Fantasia Contrappuntistica by Kenneth Leighton, which won the prize for composition; in 1957 Martha Argerich won the first prize. Other prize winners include Bruno Canino, Agustin Anievas, Joaquín Achúcarro, Jerome Rose, Garrick Ohlsson, Alberto Nosè and Wu Muye.
Members of the jury have included: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Nikita Magaloff, Igor Markevitch, Carlo Maria Giulini, Garrick Ohlsson, Bruno Canino, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Paul Badura-Skoda, Rafael Orozco, Joaquín Soriano, Gerhard Oppitz, Abdel Rahman El Bacha, Michele Campanella, Leif Ove Andsnes, Adam Harasiewicz, Hiroko Nakamura, Martha Argerich, Andrzej Jasiński, Lilya Zilberstein, Tadeusz Żmudziński, Valery Afanassiev and Eliso Virsaladze.

## Winners

Complete list of winners:
Winners of the top prizes for each year :
| Year | First prize | Second prize | Third prize |
| 1949 | not awarded | Lodovico Lessona [it] | Rossana Orlandini 4th prize: Alfred Brendel |
| 1950 | not awarded | Karl-Heinz Schlüter | Jacques Coulaud |
| 1951 | not awarded | not awarded | Karl Engel and Walter Klien |
| 1952 | Sergio Perticaroli | Andrzej Wasowski | Marisa Candeloro and Agostino Orizio |
| 1953 | Ella Goldstein | Monte Hill Davis | Esteban Sanchez Herrero |
| 1954 | Aldo Mancinelli | Gabriel Tacchino | Günter Ludwig |
| 1955 | not awarded | Germaine Devéze | Günter Ludwig |
| 1956 | Jörg Demus | Ivan Davis | James Mathis. 4th prize: Bruno Canino and Michael Ponti |
| 1957 | Martha Argerich | Ivan Davis and Jerome Lowenthal | Jeaneane Dowis |
| 1958 | José Kahan | Ronald Turini | Fabio Peressoni and Michael Ponti 4th prize: Bruno Canino |
| 1959 | not awarded | Cécile Ousset and John Perry | Imre Antal and Leonhard Hokanson 4th prize: Joaquín Achúcarro |
| 1960 | not awarded | Agustin Anievas and James Mathis | Imre Antal |
| 1961 | Jerome Rose | Norma Fisher and Howard Aibel | Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak |
| 1962 | not awarded | Brenton Dale Bartlett | Iván Erőd and Reynaldo Reyes |
| 1963 | not awarded | Gernot Kahl | José Maria Contreras |
| 1964 | Michael Ponti | François-Joël Thiollier | Ivan Drenikov |
| 1965 | not awarded | Bojidar Noev | James Dick |
| 1966 | Garrick Ohlsson | Richard Goode |
| 1967 | not awarded | Ivan Klánský | Pietro Maranca |
| 1968 | Vladimir Selivochin | Mark Zeltser | Benedikt Köhlen and Craig Sheppard |
| 1969 | Ursula Oppens | Annamaria Cigoli | Akiko Kitagawa |
| 1970 | not awarded | Selection prize: Maria Luisa Lopez-Vito | Selection prize: Maria Luisa Lopez-Vito |
| 1971 | not awarded | Nina Tichman | Ilan Rogoff and Marioara Trifan |
| 1972 | Arnaldo Cohen | not awarded | Peter Bithell and David Oei |
| 1973 | not awarded | Roland Keller and Andrzej Ratusiński | Elza Kolodin |
| 1974 | Robert Benz | Pascal Devoyon | Diane Walsh |
| 1975 | not awarded | Staffan Scheja | Laszlo Simon and Terence Judd |
| 1976 | Roberto Cappello | Daniel Rivera | Susan Ann Howes and Adrienne Shannon |
| 1977 | not awarded | Ayami Ikeba and Véronique Roux | Joop Celis and Kyoto Ito |
| 1978 | Boris Bloch | Dennis Lee | Arnulf von Arnim 4th prize: Josep Colom |
| 1979 | Catherine Vickers | not awarded | Alyce Le Blanc |
| 1980 | not awarded | Ruriko Kikuchi, Rolf Plagge and Hai-Kyung Suh | |
| 1981 | Margarita Höhenrieder | Lev Natochenny | Boyan Vodenitcharov |
| 1982 | not awarded | Hung-Kuan Chen | Daniel Blumenthal and Yukino Fujiwara |
| 1983 | not awarded | Robert McDonald | Frederick Blum and Arthur Greene |
| 1984 | Louis Lortie | Matthias Fletzberger | Bernd Glemser |
| 1985 | José Carlos Cocarelli | Uriel Tsachor and Akira Wakabayashi | Natalia Vlassenko |
| 1986 | not awarded | Benjamin Frith and Pedrag Muzijevic | R. Clipper Erickson and Igor Kamenz |
| 1987 | Lilya Zilberstein | Valery Kuleshof | Ian Munro and Alfredo Perl |
| 1988 | not awarded | Igor Kamenz and Benjamin Pasternack | Fabio Bidini |
| 1989 | not awarded | Aleksandar Madžar | Francesco Cipolletta and Valery Grohovsky |
| 1990 | not awarded | Karina Yavlenskaya | Midori Nohara |
| 1991 | not awarded | Olivier Cazal and Igor Kamenz | Stanislav Judenich |
| 1992 | Anna Kravtchenko | Fabio Bidini | Mark Anderson and Sergei Babayan |
| 1993 | Roberto Cominati | Vitaly Samoschko | Olivier Cazal |
| 1994 | Mzia Simonishwili | Iwao Murakami | Corrado Rollero |
| 1995 | Alexander Shtarkman | Sergei Tarasov |
| 1996 | not awarded | Jan Gottlieb Jiracek | Michael Dantschenko |
| 1997 | not awarded | Yoon-Soo Lee | Dimitri Vorobieff |
| 1998 | not awarded | Olaf John Laneri | Catherine Chi |
| 1999 | Alexander Kobrin | Alberto Nosè | Min-Soo Sohn |
| 2000 | not awarded | not awarded | Ayako Kimura and Carl Wolf |
| 2001 | Alexander Romanovsky | Hea-Jung Cho | Dong-Min Lim |
| 2003 | not awarded | Maria Stembolskaia | Lyubov Gegetchkori and Mu-Ye Wu |
| 2004/2005 | Giuseppe Andaloro | Mariangela Vacatello | Hye-Jin Kim |
| 2006/2007 | Matthew Ward | Sofya Gulyak and Dinara Nadzhafova | Lilian Akopova |
| 2008/2009 | Michail Lifits | Alexey Lebedev | Gesualdo Coggi |
| 2010/2011 | not awarded | Anna Bulkina and Antonii Barishevskyi | Tatiana Chernichka |
| 2012/2013 | not awarded | Rodolfo Leone | Akihiro Sakiya and Dmitry Shishkin |
| 2014/2015 | Ji-Yeong Mun | Alberto Ferro | Roman Lopatynskyi |
| 2016/2017 | Ivan Krpan [hr] | Jae-Yeon Won | Anna Geniushene |
| 2018/2019 | Emanuil Ivanov | Shiori Kuwahara | Giorgi Gigashvili |
| 2021 | Jae Hong Park | Do-Hyun Kim | Lukas Sternath |
| 2023 | Arsenii Mun | Anthony Ratinov | Ryota Yamazaki |