Konstantin Emelianov wins first prize at the ‘Rina Sala Gallo’ Competition in Monza

Another prestigious award for the students of the Fondazione Accademia Internazionale di Imola, once again at an important international competition: after winning the first prize at the Sergio Fiorentino Piano Competition just a few weeks ago, Konstantin Emelianov won the first prize, the youth jury prize and the audience prize at the ‘Rina Sala Gallo’ Competition in Monza.

 Born in 1994 in Krasnodar, Russia, he graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Sergei Dorensky and since 2022 he has been attending the higher course at Accademia Internazionale di Imola with Boris Petrushansky. In recent years he collected important victories at the most prestigious international competitions, such as third prize at the 16th Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019, the International Competition for Young Pianists in memory of Vladimir Horowitz, the piano competitions in Verona (Italy) and Suzhou (China), the first prize and the audience prize at the Viotti Piano Competition and the International German Piano Award 2022, where he also received the audience prize.

At the final, Emelianov performed Sergej Rachmaninov’s Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 with the Milan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Giancarlo Rizzi.

 ‘I think that when you are a musician you are doing it for yourself first of all, because it is our way to find the meaning in this life,’ he stated during an interview, ’We can try to find it only with our hands, ears and nothing else. For the final round I chose Rachmaninov’s Concerto No 3; it is absolutely one of my favourite works ever and, at the same time, it is one of the works that at some points I hate so much because […] every time I play this concerto for me it is like climbing a mountain, it is something impossibly beautiful, complex and dramatic at the same time’.