Every two years, a musical feat of world standard is achieved by a young Australian in an unlikely Victorian country town. Shepparton, home of irrigation and stone fruit, population almost 70,600, or an average AFL crowd, hosts it.

Those who have recently accomplished this stupendous achievement are unknown. Have you heard of Alex Zhang or Oliver She or Tony Lee? And you won’t have heard of Joshua Han, too, who on Saturday, 12 October, won this year’s Australian National Piano Award, taking home $41,000 in prize money.

His playing over four, 45-minute recitals in six days was as sublime as performances by the world’s best. (And that comes from someone who has heard live, as they say, many of the greatest pianists, including Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, Claudio Arrau, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Daniel Barrenboim.)

The award is curious beyond belief. In 1990, a small group of Shepparton music-lovers proposed it. Professor Max Cooke, a renowned pianist and teacher, and Darryl Coote (the award’s president) were already giving masterclasses in Shepp, as the locals call it, and backed the idea. Local philanthropist the Fairley Foundation donated seeding money, and Dame Elizabeth Murdoch gave financial support until her death. (Rupert and Lachlan appear not to have continued her generosity.) The greater Shepparton City Council is the top sponsor and puts $28,000 towards the first prize’s $33,000.

Competition is as gruelling as it gets. Twenty-five pianists under 35, the age limit, this year sent in CDs of their playing. Fourteen finalists were selected. (Only three of the 14 had European or Anglo-Saxon forebears. The rest were dinky-di Aussies of Asian origin. Say anything?)

Over four days, three adjudicators, who included Jaysom Gillham, whose recent problems with the Melbourne Symphony have been well-documented in Pearls & Irritations, heard each finalist play two, 45-minute recitals.

Unlike many other piano competitions, no orchestra, string quartet or singer was there to share the soloists’ nerves. Finalists just had to confront the terrifying big black Steinway centre-stage and do their damndest. Music from all eras, beginning with Baroque, had to be represented in each recital.

The 14 were whittled down to five semi-finalists – two non-Asian – who played another 45-minute recital. And, of them, three were chosen – one non-Asian – to play a ‘grand final’ 45-minute recital.

Joshua Han, 22, and Rio Xiang, 25, might have been brothers. So slight they wore almost-empty suits, their haircuts were conventional short-back-and-sides, an abundant coal-black cowlick occasionally falling over the right side of their foreheads. They were still being trained at the Sydney Conservatorium, which says a lot for the quality of Australian musical teaching. Jude Holland, 21, was majoring in piano performance at the University of Western Australia’s conservatorium. His physique also resembled a greyhound’s. To look like a marathon runner is apt to compete at ANPA; to reach even the semi-finals you need exceptional stamina.

Playing the piano at elite levels is as hard as it gets, the world’s most difficult task, say some. Make no mistake, all of the ANPA finalists did something that is infinitely harder than the accomplishments of Australia’s Olympic medallists combined. Playing the ferociously difficult repertoire at the summit of piano music requires sublime athleticism in fingers, arms, and torsos. (Nowhere near the same technical demands are made of gold-medal swimmers or pole vaulters, say.) Great pianism also demands an enormous intellect capable of interpreting from the notes on the staves what the composer had in mind and shape interpretations accordingly.

In short, the best pianists are artists, famed for the nuances of their phrasing, their sublime virtuosity, and the appropriateness of their louds and softs and in-betweens.

Of the thousands of notes I heard at seven of the semi-finalists’ and finalists’ recitals, I failed to hear a single sound that seemed wrong, that was either too loud or too soft than it should have been, that sat in a bad marriage with the music either side of it. In short, the semi-finalists and finalists played with as much poise and elegance and technical skills as the world’s best.

The Shepparton News is not only a sponsor of the competition but throws in $1000 for a prize for the best Bach pianist. (Joshua Han won it.) Its pages cover the competition, which is biennial, but can you imagine the Murdoch or 9 Press writing a word about an event that showcases young Australian classical pianists of world class? Can we ever imagine Lachlan Murdoch plundering his profound pockets for a $1000 prize? Moreover, to my knowledge no other reporter covered the event. Australian Digital Concert Hall, a subscriber service, streamed the performances, and 3MBS in Melbourne recorded the semi-final and grand-final recitals.

The event was held in the acoustically excellent Riverbanks Eastlink auditorium. Finalists played to audiences of about 100, average age late 60s, early 70s. Under 35s playing to over 70s. I saw no one in the audience of the competitors’ ages.

And although the finalists have the talent to forge international concert careers, their futures will be decided by agents, critics, marketing, publicity, their personalities, and the musicians’ bane, how they handle travel. It’s especially difficult for Australian musicians, who need to play concerts in Europe and North America to get known. My friend Amir Farid, who won ANPA in 2006, has gone to live in New York for the greater opportunities it provides, for its proximity to concert halls in the US and Europe.

And it’s handy to have a remarkable backstory. In ANPA’s glossy brochure, finalists’ potted bios say where they were taught and the prizes they’ve already won. But I’ve no doubt that among them are some wonderful tales of keyboard dedication sponsored by parents of little money and possibly even less musicality. The magnificent English pianist Paul Lewis had an arresting upbringing; his mother worked for a local Liverpool council and his father was a wharfie.

Stephen Downes’s novel The Hands of Pianists was shortlisted for the 2022 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. His novel Mural is out now.

https://johnmenadue.com/country-town-showcases-world-standard-young-pianists/

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