Vienna's "Pianos&Soul" Competition Announces 2024 Winners

Pianist Edward Leung has won first prize and the public prize at this year's salon music competition

The AMADEUS Festival Vienna recently presented International Salon Music Piano Competition “Pianos&Soul,” aimed at highlighting the genre of salon music.

Of the three finalists, Edward Leung won the first prize and €5,000. He will be appointed as a Bösendorfer-AMADEUS Young Artist, which involves opportunities valued at around €8,000. He also received the public prize, which includes €500, a Bösendorfer Piano Factory tour, plus a Vienna tour in the footsteps of renowned musical figures.

Soyeon Chang received second prize which includes €3,000 and a CD recording at the Bösendorfer Selection Room Wiener Neustadt, worth around €3,000.

Third place of €1,000 and a performance opportunity at Bösendorfer Hall or the Bösendorfer Salon went to Oksana Oposhnian. 

Following the “Violins&Soul” edition in early 2023, the Festival’s piano edition was open to pianists aged between 15 and 35 as of December 31, 2024.

Edward Leung currently holds the current Philharmonia MMSF Piano Fellowship — and has won all the major prizes at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He has made concerto appearances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Filarmonica Mihail Jora Bacau. He is represented by The Keyboard Charitable Trust in London and Live Music Now UK.

Edward is a member of the award-winning duo, Kapoor-Leung Duo, with violinist Usha Kapoor. Winners of the 2020 Tunnell Trust Awards and the 2018 Birmingham International Piano Chamber Music Competition, the Duo has performed at Wigmore Hall, Winchester Chamber Music Festival, Wye Valley Music, Marden House Concerts.

He is the co-founder of Opus 21, an innovative chamber music collective dedicated to bringing an eclectic repertory of chamber music to Princeton University and beyond.

A graduate of Princeton University, where he studied piano with Francine Kay, Edward was named the inaugural Aske-Princeton International Fellow at The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hertfordshire, England. He received a Master of Music and Advanced Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where he studied with Pascal Nemirovski. He served as the inaugural Accompanist-in-Residence and Music Partnership Coordinator at the Westminster School. Currently, Edward is a Staff Pianist at The Yehudi Menuhin School.