Piano Contest | Adler Büttner Stiftung

Dr. Hermann Buettner Piano Contest

Since 1998 the Dr. Hermann Buettner Piano Contest takes place every year at the Karlsruhe University of Music. So far piano solo featured the majority of the program. In some years however other genres gained the opportunity to be performed such as obligatory piece piano with two strings, piano and oboe, piano with vocals, piano duo or piano concerts. On one occasion a competition (piano solo) was realized exclusively for pre-students featuring two different age groups.

Double CD "WINNERS 2010-2019"

The Adler Büttner Foundation has achieved to produce a double CD including recordings of 19 young pianists and chamber musicians that have won prizes at the Dr. Hermann Büttner piano contest over the past ten years. A first CD comprises pieces of piano solo while a second CD compiles chamber music with rather seldom heard pieces of great composers as well as some not so well known composers starting from Johann Sebastian Bach into the present times. The recordings have been professionally produced in February 2020 in the studio of the SWR broadcasting service in Kaiserslautern; they go along with a comprehensive booklet (both in German and English language) that gives detailed background information on the performing artists.

The Adler Büttner Stiftung is ready to provide single copies of the double CD at request – and would highly appreciate kind donations as a contribution to the production costs.

Piano Contest 2017

On November 4 an 5, 2017, the auditions for the contest in piano and violoncello took place at the Velte-Saal of Schloss Gottesaue. Ten duos followed the inviation to take part in the contest.

The first prize (4.000 €) was achieved by cellist Gunwoo Park and pianist Sion Choi. A second prize (2.000 €) was awarded to the duo Haeran Oh (violoncello) and Ji Eun Park (piano). Additionally, three promotional prizes of 1.000 € each were awarded to the duos Uriah Tutter (violoncello) & Uram Kim (piano), Lukas Frind (violoncello) & Rasmus Andreas Raid (piano) and Oliver Erlich (violoncello) & Jakob Raab (piano).

These five duos have introduced themselves to the public by performing in the course of the laureate concert on December 13, 2017, at the Velte-Saal of Schloss Gottesaue.

Laureate concert | December 13, 2017, 19:30

The laureates of the Dr. Hermann Buettner Contest of 2017 habe presented themselves in a celebratory final concert on November 13, 2017.

Jubilee Concert Klavierissimo 20

The foundation took the opportunity to celebrate the twenty years of existence of the Dr. Hermann Büttner piano contest through a grand concert evening on May 24, 2018, at the Wolfgang-Rihm-Forum of the University of Music in Karlsruhe. First laureates of the past contests performed four piano concerts:

Johann Sebastian Bach, concert for three pianos C major BWV 1064 – Fil Liotis, Mihee Kim and Sion Choi, piano
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, concert for two pianos E flat major KV 365 – Frank Dupree and Jee Eun Franziska Lee, piano
Robert Schumann, piano concert a minor op. 54 – Gloria Campaner, piano
Sergei W. Rachmaninow, Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini op. 43 – Regina Chernychko, piano

The pianists were accomponied by the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, conducted by Frank Dupree.

Piano Contest 2018

On November 17 and 18, 2018 auditions were held for the Dr. Hermann Büttner piano contest. The contest was held for piano solo works. Pieces by Debussy, Chopin and Vienna Classics were mandatory. The following contestants were awarded:

promotional prizes of 500 EUR each to Hyunhee Hwang and Katharina Kreutz,
second prizes of equal ranking (1.500 EUR each) to Sion Choi, Rie Kibayashi and WooRim Lee and
as a first prize a one year scholarship of 3.600 EUR to Uram Kim.

The laureates’ concert was performed on November 23, 2018 in the Velte-Saal of Schloss Gottesaue.

Find the press release of the Karlsruhe University of Music here.

Piano Contest 2019

In 2019 the Dr. Hermann Büttner piano contest has carried out as contest for trio with piano.

Prizes have been awarded to in total three trios. A promotional prize of 1.800 € has been awarded to the trio comprising Olivier Girardin (flute), Sofia Orgas (violoncello) and Yejin Ahn (piano). A second prize in the amount of 3.000 € has been granted to the “0. limits trio” consisting of Hua Shao (violin), Wei-Luen Lee (violoncello) and Mingjie Guo (piano).

The “Trio May” with Yoerae Kim (violin), Andreas Schmalhofer (violoncello) and Mijeok Gwon (piano) has won the first prize and an amount of 6.000 €.

The laureates have performed in their laureate’s concert on November 7, 2019, in the Velte-Saal.

Find the press release of the University of Music on the contest here (German only).