Honens piano competition quarterfinals available on audio streaming

The Honens International Piano Competition, which unfolds over a long process that eventually brings the narrowed field to live performances before a jury in Calgary, has begun its quarter finals, in which 21 young pianists from around the world give a 50-minute solo recital and a 45-minute collaborative (chamber music) performance.

This round began Thursday and wraps up Wednesday. The semi-finalists get back on stage Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. The finals are Nov. 5 and 6.

The competition has a raft of resources available online, including video profiles of the quarterfinalists and audio streaming of their performances. Navigating the site is clumsy and you don't get the information on what the pianist is performing in the audio window; you have to go look it up in a separate window that displays the programme list with no time markings -- meaning that you actually have to know what you're listening to.

I haven't had the time to listen to much. This morning, there were nine sets of performances posted. My quick dip into the audio pool netted a charming performance of a Rameau suite given a clever working-over by Luciano Berio, played by Ukranian competitor Natasha Kudritskaya.

We heard Kudritskaya at the Van Cliburn competition earlier this year. That competition offered a much better web setup, including full audio streaming of the performances. Here she is, at the Van Cliburn, playing "Ondine" from Maurice Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit: