Nearly 2,000 young pianists will participate in a five-day piano contest in the southern city of Shenzhen during the coming National Day holidays. The winners will be given tickets for next year's Schumann Piano Festival in Zwickau, the late pianist Robert Schumann's hometown.

The contestants have been chosen from more than 20,000 young candidates across the Asian-Pacific region, most from China in the first round held over the past five months. The winners of the 31 teams will be announced on October 6, shortly after the competition ends, and the lucky group will attend the finals in Germany from May 1 to May 12 next year.

The organizing committee of the International Robert Schumann Contest for Piano and Voice, an international professional piano contest held every four years, holds the festival every two years to spotlight talented young pianists under the age of 18 from around the world.

The German-Chinese Economic and Cultural Exchange Association has been entrusted with the selections in China for the Asia-Pacific region, since 2003. Before that, only a few young Chinese pianists could attend the international competition given the high costs of living in Germany for at least a month.

The number of participants has risen markedly from 3,000 two years ago in the first selections in China, to more than 20,000 this year, according to association president John Li.

(China Daily September 30, 2005)