Hamamatsu International Piano Competition awards Manami Suzuki First Prize, Chamber Music Prize & Audience Prize

Manami Suzuki (pictured below) won not only the First Prize but the Chamber Music Prize and Audience Prize. On behalf of the distinguished international Jury of the 12th Competition, chair Noriko Ogawa presented the awards to Suzuki after her performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra conducted by Toshiaki Umeda on Sunday evening in front of a packed 2,300-seater audience at the ACT CITY, Hamamatsu. 

Manami Suzuki, who is supported by the Argerich Arts Foundation in Japan and is in 1st year of Postgraduate studies in Tokyo, commented: 

'This is a huge honour for me. I watched the 10th Hamamatsu Piano Competition on YouTube in 2018 and knew I wanted to enter it one day. I was also hugely inspired by the film based on Riku Onda’s wonderful book Honeybees and Distant Thunder, a fictional tale about a Japanese piano competition (newly-available translated into English). It is quite overwhelming to win but I just want to carry on as before, practising my favourite composers – Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert – and playing as sincerely as I can.'

Watch Manami Suzuki’s performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 3

Suzuki will receive ¥4,000,000 (just over £20,000), an extensive concert tour of Japan, a recording on Orchid Classics to coincide with a recital at King’s Place, London on 23rd January, 2026, arranged by Ikon Arts Management and further concerts in Paris and Warsaw in the season ahead. 

After a thrilling fortnight where 87 pianists from around the world competed, the 12^th Hamamatsu International Piano Competition drew to a close with the winners’ recital on Monday 25 November 2024. 

Says Noriko Ogawa:

'Following the strict rules of the competition duly upheld, my colleagues of the Jury were not permitted to confer between themselves about any of the competitors, so it was a wonderful surprise to discover that we had voted the first Japanese prize winner, who has now become the first woman to win.  The Hamamatsu Piano Competition is above all a wonderful showcase for the famous piano makers of Hamamatsu, the home of the manufacturers of Yamaha and Kawai pianos.   With the choice of three instruments, Manami Suzuki selected the new Steinway which is held at Act City’s concert hall. This was also the first time Steinway won the Competition!'

1^st Prize, Chamber & Audience Prizes: Manami Suzuki (Japan)

2nd Prize - Jonas Aumiller (Germany) 

3^rd Prize - Kaito Kobayashi (Japan)

4^th Prize - JJ Jun Li Bui (Canada) 

5^th Prize - Korkmaz Can Sağlam (Turkey) 

6^th Prize, Prize for best performance of Japanese new commission – Robert Bily (Czech Republic) 

The distinguished international jury chaired by Noriko Ogawa featured Hortense Cartier-Bresson, Dang Thai Son, Paul Hughes, Peter Jablonski, Momo Kodama, Ewa Kupiek, Pedja Muzijevic,Ronan O’Hora, Ilya Rashkovskiy, and Akiyoshi Sako, who listened to some 70 hours of piano playing in just over a fortnight.   

This year’s Competition attracted 638 applications, double that of 2018, and 87 competitors from 26 countries participated live in Japan.