The 16th International piano competition of Orléans 2024 will take place in two distinct stages: in the spring of 2024 in three locations around the world for the first round, and then in the autumn of 2024 in Orléans, France, for the rest of the competition.

In 1994, 30 years ago, Françoise Thinat realised her dream of offering Orléans a major international piano event devoted to new music and the early 20th century repertoire.

The gamble paid off: from the very first edition, the Competition was a real unifying event with artists from all over the world, young talents who today are among the great professionals of classical and contemporary music. We need only mention that in the prize list of this first edition we find Hideki Nagano, today the official pianist of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, a legendary group created by Pierre Boulez in 1976 and which will accompany our three finalists in October 2024 in Vortex Temporum by Gérard Grisey.

If the Competition has evolved while keeping at heart the fundamental principles of the first edition, 30 years later it remains “dreamy” and still offers new challenges. This is why we are presenting a new formula: the Competition will welcome pianists from all over the world in Orléans, as usual, but it will also go abroad to meet these young pianists who will be the professionals of tomorrow: we will thus organise a first ‘nomadic’ tour which will begin in the spring of 2024 in Chicago, and will continue in Orléans and Shanghai. The candidates selected at the end of this first round will then perform in the second round, the Semi-Final recital and the Final, from October 26 to November 2, 2024 in Orléans, all in the form of a real piano festival. On November 4, the three finalists will perform at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris for the first time with the Ensemble Intercontemporain for a creation by Bastien David in which the three finalists will play… together!

On the artistic side, new music will, as always, be at the forefront: each candidate will be able to propose a free choice of works in his or her programme, throughout the four rounds. Not forgetting the special prizes, the new piece by Bastien David, co-commissioned with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, and the composition prize once again in partnership with Radio France. The repertoire of the beginning of the century will also have its place, notably in the final where the works of three French composers are proposed to the candidates, works marvellously recorded and interpreted by Françoise Thinat to whom I sincerely wish to dedicate this anniversary edition which would not exist without her!

In the first round, candidates will now have to propose a work from before 1900 to show how 20th and 21st century music can be associated with other repertoires and vice versa.

Once again, an ambitious, dreamy but above all smiling edition… It is with this optimism and enthusiasm that Françoise Thinat has imbued the spirit of the International piano competition of Orléans 2024 which, thirty years later, continues to inspire its candidates, in particular thanks to the work of the team and of our wonderful association!

Isabella Vasilotta, Artistic director