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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Eric Lu of the USA has won the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. The prestigious contest, named after renowned Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin, is held once every five years, drawing a large local and international audience and often helping launch global careers.
“I am grateful to the jury for this honour. My dream has come true and I am deeply moved,” said the 27-year-old American, when the jury announced their decision after long deliberations at 2:30 am.
He will this evening be awarded his trophy by Polish President Karol Nawrocki and take home a prize of €60,000.
“[Lu’s] interpretations delighted with their maturity, subtlety, and extraordinary sense of phrasing – this is pianism of the highest order, in a spirit that would have been close to Chopin’s heart,” wrote Poland’s culture minister, Marta Cienkowska.
This year’s competition, which began on 2 October, attracted a record 642 applicants, who were all aged between 16 and 30, in accordance with the contest’s rules. Eventually, 84 pianists from 19 countries were selected to take part.
China, with 28 pianists, was the best-represented country at the competition, followed by Japan and Poland, which each had 13 contestants taking part – highlighting Chopin’s popularity in Asia as well as his homeland.
“This is a scale that is impossible to imagine for any other event related to classical music,” Cienkowska said during the opening of event, which also marks the beginning of celebrations of the contest’s centenary. It was first held in 1927.
“For almost 100 years, this is where the careers of pianists who become ambassadors of Chopin and Poland on all continents have been launched,” added Cienkowska.
Zainaugurowaliśmy XIX Międzynarodowy Konkurs Pianistyczny im. Fryderyka Chopina – jedno z najważniejszych wydarzeń muzycznych świata.
To tutaj od prawie 100 lat rodzą się kariery pianistów, którzy stają się ambasadorami Chopina i Polski na wszystkich kontynentach. Tegoroczna… pic.twitter.com/v2tfeIsO1E
— Marta Cienkowska (@MartaCienkowska) September 30, 2025
The field was eventually whittled down to 11 finalists, who gave concert performances between Saturday and Monday at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw. As well as Lu, they were:
Piotr Alexewicz (Poland), Kevin Chen (Canada), David Khrikuli (Georgia), Shiori Kuwahara (Japan), Tianyou Li (China), Tianyao Lyu (China), Vincent Ong (Malaysia), Miyu Shindo (Japan), Zitong Wang (China), and William Yang (USA).
The youngest of them was Tianyao Lyu, aged just 16 and turning 17 today. She currently studies at the Poznań Academy of Music in Poland
The winner was then selected by a 17-person jury comprising world-class Chopin experts and past editions’ winners. As well as awarding Eric Lu first place, they picked Kevin Chen in second and Zitong Wang in third. The latter two take home prices of €40,000 and €35,000 respectively.
The International Chopin Piano Competition, one of the few such events devoted to the works of a single composer, is among classical music’s most prestigious contests.
Previous winners, including Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich, Poland’s Krystian Zimerman and last edition’s winner Bruce Liu, have often gone on to have illustrious careers.
Poland is the joint-most successful country in the history of the competition. The most recent of the four Polish winners was Rafał Blechacz in 2005, who became the only pianist to receive first prize as well as the prizes for polonaise, mazurka, sonata, and concerto performances.
The competition is run by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, which was created by the Polish parliament in 2001 and is overseen by the culture ministry to research and promote the composer’s works.
Pianoforte has become the first Polish documentary to win an International Emmy Award.
The film, about young pianists competing in the famous Chopin Competition held in Warsaw, won in the best arts programming category https://t.co/E597faXQT2
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 26, 2024
Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola near Warsaw in 1810 and was a musical prodigy who composed many of his works, including both the concertos performed in the final, before he left Poland at the age of 20.
After settling in Paris, he continued to compose and perform, mostly in the city’s salons. Most of his compositions are for solo piano, including mazurkas and polonaises, and among his influences were Polish folk music. His association of music with nationalism has helped to make him a leading symbol of the Romantic era.
Having suffered from poor health for most of his life, he died aged just 39. His heart was taken back to Poland, and the urn containing it is now immured in a pillar at the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.
A previously unknown waltz by Chopin has been found by chance at a library in New York.
It is the first time in almost a century that a new work by the renowned Polish composer, who died in 1849, has been discovered https://t.co/zIYXXlG7Nr
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 31, 2024
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Fryderyk Chopin Institute/Facebook
Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. She is a member of the European Press Prize’s preparatory committee. She was 2022 Fellow at the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program at City University of New York. In 2024, she graduated from the Advanced Leadership Programme for Top Talents at the Center for Leadership. She has previously contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy and Duży Format.
