Junior competition - 2025

Presentation

The International piano competition of Orléans for youth “Brin d’herbe” encourages young pianists to explore contemporary and modern music from an early age.
The Competition “Brin d’herbe” is organised every two years, alternating with the International piano competition of Orléans. Created in 2004, the contest, unique event in the field of music creation, welcomes young candidates and gathers a jury formed of personalities from all around the world, fully qualified in teaching the contemporary repertoire.
Promoting and disseminating the contemporary repertoire to these young people and to the audience is an objective that adds to the idea of building a new pedagogy around this repertoire. The work commissioned to a composer, every two year, demonstrates our strong desire to build a pedagogical repertoire for the contemporary piano, while following the pioneer idea of the “Games” Játékok, developed by the major Hungarian composer György Kurtág.

11th Competition: April 10-13, 2025
Find here the rules

Dates of the Competition
From April 10 to 13, 2025.
Salle de l’Institut, Orléans

April 10, 11, 12 (from 2.00pm):
– Round of the Competition.
The young candidates from the 3 levels will play their programme in front of the Jury.

April 13
– 3.00pm: Concert of the laureates followed by the Award ceremony.

The Competition is open to the public.
Tickets onsite during the Competition / Tickets online on HelloAsso
Salle de l’Institut 4 Place Sainte-Croix 45000 Orléans – France

The 11th edition of the International competition of Orléans for youth “Brin d’herbe” will take place at the “Salle de l’Institut”, in April 2025.

The competition will bring together international young pianists around the repertoire from 1900 to the present day. A piano work, commissioned to the Japanese composer Miharu Ogura, will be premiered.
The Jury will include the pianists Sodi Braide, Toros Can and Miharu Ogura and will award Prizes to the laureates, on the three levels of competition.

The ‘Brin d’herbe’ Competition is back for its 11th edition! The formula remains unchanged: we invite young pianists from all over the world to give their best while discovering the repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries on the beautiful stage of the Salle de l’Institut!
This year, we are delighted to present a commission from one of our prize-winners at the Orléans Competition: Miharu Ogura. She won the Third Prize at the 13th Competition in Orléans in 2018 and, in 2022, with great success, the André Chevillion – Yvonne Bonnaud Composition Prize at the 15th Competition, as well as a commission for a work by Radio France.
For this competition commission, she is concentrating on the idea of play in the playful sense of the term, on the use of the hand and on the way in which sound is constructed.
Another great adventure for little fingers! See you soon!

Isabella Vasilotta, Artistic director

Registration: until February 4th 2025 included.

All information regarding the organisation of the rounds and competition procedures are available here in the Competition rules.

Examples of programmes are viewable in the rules document.
Please use the samed layout as in the documents to send your programme when you register.

The preselection of the candidates for the Competition will be done by sending:
– the complete registration file – see page 114-15 (deadline: February 4th, 2025 included).
– a recent and good quality video recording of the performance of two short pieces among which one piece composed after 1900 and one composed after 1970.

Total duration of the video:
2 to 3 minutes for the Beginner level
3 to 5 minutes for the Intermediate level
5 to 8 minutes for the Advanced level.

The two pieces can be recorded separately and edited one after the other in a single file.
For help on how to film this video, applicants are advised to watch the videos of the International piano competition of Orléans for youth Brin d’herbe 2019 on our YouTube channel: Concours international de piano d’Orléans.
Youtube link and MP4 file (sent by email/Wetransfer) are both accepted.
Please contact us if you require further technical information.Upon receipt of the applications, the complete files will be submitted to the Jury of preselection who will view the videos and preselect a maximum of 24 candidates, spread over the 3 levels of the Competition.
Every candidate will be notified by email from February 24th, 2025.

Click here to register online

Documents required to register for thee Competition and to returned signed:
Parental authorisation Brin d herbe Competition 2025
Image authorisation Brin d herbe Competition 2025

Sodi Braide – Pianist/Conductor, Great Britain
Toros Can – Pianist, Turkey
Miharu Ogura – Pianist/Composer, Japan

Composer : Miharu Ogura
Title of the work: Illusion pour Boléro (2024)

I. Point to surface – beginner level
II. Listen to your body – intermediate level
III. Deflected loop – advanced level

Commission of ‘Orléans Concours International’ for the 11th International piano competition of Orléans for youth ‘Brin d’herbe’.

Note of intent of the composer:
The piece was created as a commission for the 11th International piano competition of Orléans for youth, Brin d’herbe. In these three pieces, I have incorporated certain aspects that I admire in Ravel’s Bolero, as Ravel will celebrate his 150th anniversary in 2025. Additionally, through this
composition, I wanted to offer young pianists the opportunity to confront various musical situations, in the hope that they will continue to explore the world of contemporary music.

The score of the mandatory piece is viewable here
and will be sent as a pdf file to the candidates selected for the competition.

Details from the composer about the score:

“The difference between normal notes and those played/tapped with the fingertip is this: notes played/tapped with the fingertip simply need to be “touched” to produce a percussive sound, without generating a “piano sound”, unlike normal notes which produce a typical piano sound.”

Below is the file where bars 2 to 5 are played: