Competitions › European Piano Competition Bremen
European Piano Competition Bremen
Next edition
No future edition is announced on the official pages we could check.
Overview
Piano competition founded in 1987 (as the Bremen Piano Competition) for young pianists aged 16 to 30 from Europe, the CIS countries, Georgia, Ukraine, Turkey and Israel. The final is a concerto with the Bremer Philharmoniker; the competition encourages contemporary music and works by female composers.
- Organiser
- Landesmusikrat Bremen e.V.
- Instruments
- Piano
- Category
- Solo piano
- Age limits
- 16–30 (2024 edition: born 1993–2008)
Rules & repertoire
Registration & fee
Application with video preselection recording; registration fee EUR 80 (2024 edition).
Rounds & time limits
- Preselection: video, max. 30 min
- Quarterfinal (Schubert round): max. 60 min, up to 20 candidates
- Semifinal: free recital incl. spoken introductions, max. 70 min, 6 candidates
- Final: concerto with the Bremer Philharmoniker, 3 finalists
Repertoire
2024: video preselection (Haydn/Mozart or listed Beethoven sonata, a Chopin etude and an etude by Bartók, Debussy, Hamelin, Ligeti, Rachmaninoff or Scriabin); 'Schubert round' with a Schubert sonata or listed work plus a post-1970 work by a composer from the candidate's home country; free recital with spoken introduction; concerto from a list (many standard concertos excluded). A work by a female composer must be included in the live rounds.
Jury & prizes
Jury
- Konstanze Eickhorst (chair, Germany)
- Silke Avenhaus (Germany)
- Carsten Dürer (Germany)
- Christopher Elton (UK)
- Roland Krüger (Germany)
- Varvara Nepomnyashchaya (Russia/Germany)
- Andrzej Pikul (Poland)
Prizes
- 1st prize: EUR 10,000
- 2nd prize: EUR 7,500
- 3rd prize: EUR 5,000
- Audience prize: EUR 2,500
- Special prize for the youngest semifinalist: EUR 2,000
- Siegrid Ernst Prize (work by a female composer): EUR 1,000
Past editions
- 2024 — Bremen (Sendesaal Bremen; final at Die Glocke) source
Summarised from official sources, last checked 10 Nov 2026. Main source