Featuring 42 young musicians from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, China and South Korea, performing in 12 piano trio and string quartet ensembles over several challenging rounds, the Asia-Pacific Chamber Music Competition is an event like no other on Australia’s classical music calendar.

“There are a number of classical music competitions in Australia,” says Benjamin Woodroffe, the general manager of Chamber Music Australia, which presents the Asia-Pacific Chamber Music Competition. “But there are only a handful of really, really good ones that strictly adhere to requirements about the standard of the jury, the standard of the prizes and the standard of the exposure and engagements that the competition can organise for the prize-winners.

“We are one of the very few organisations that have a competition that’s a member of a world federation of international music competitions. Now that all sounds very worthy, but essentially there’s an organisation based in Geneva that monitors the standards of classical music competitions around the world, and they have 125 members, and we are one of them,” Woodroffe explains.

Previously known as the National Australian Chamber Music Competition, last year the competition was expanded to include entrants aged 20 to 30 from throughout Asia (including: China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Korea) as well as New Zealand.

“The good thing about a region-wide competition is that anything can happen. The local characteristics of the chamber music artform that we’re used to in Australia get questioned as soon as you invite anybody from outside [the country], and that’s a really good way of upsetting the norm.

“The groups that are coming from outside of Australia, their standard is incredible, and I think our Australian groups are going to have to rise to the occasion.”

The newly-expanded event offers finalists an even higher standard of competition; and given its strong international connections, being a finalist in the Asia-Pacific Chamber Music Competition – let alone winning – now carries significantly more weight than ever before.

“I’m really fortunate to have an international network of competition runners, agents, presenters, and festival directors that I can call upon, and that watch our competition with a keen eye, because they know that the standard is so good,” Woodroffe says.

“We’ve got an international audience that watches with great interest to see who wins, and who then also get in touch with us to take on the contestants that they want. It’s a bit like a really, really, really top class talent scouting agency; we’re just fortunate that Australians love competitions and they want to come along and enjoy the process.”

The Asia Pacific Chamber Music Competition, July 1 - 5 at the Melbourne Recital Centre, cnr Southbank Boulevard and Sturt Street, Southbank.

www.chambermusicaustralia.com.au

www.melbournerecitalcentre.com.au