Anton Mejias, twenty years old pianist from Finland and Airi Katada, twenty-nine years old from Japan, won on Saturday evening, November 6, at the Teatro Civico in Vercelli, the second prize ex aequo of the 71st G.B. Viotti International Piano Competition 2021.

The first prize, as announced by the Master of Ceremonies of the Viotti Competition, Paolo Pomati, was not awarded and this is the seventeenth time this has happened in the long history of the Viotti piano competition. The Gian Battista Viotti International Music Competition is organized by the Vercelli Quartet Society in collaboration with the City of Vercelli, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Vercelli and the University of Piemonte Orientale. As in previous years, the competition involved many students enrolled at UPO - the Viotti Angels - who supported the competitors and the organization throughout the event.

It was, however, a final full of meaning, intense and exciting, especially thanks to the interpretations of the three finalists with the Orchestra of the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa conducted by Marcello Rota in a Civic Theatre finally packed with passionate and attentive audience. 

The Japanese contestant opened the evening with Ludwig van Beethoven's Concerto No. 4 in G major while Anton Mejias, who performed immediately afterwards, played Fryderyk Chopin's Concerto No. 1 in E minor. The program concluded with 29-year-old Kisuk Kwon of Korea, who also performed Beethoven's Concerto No. 4 in G major.

The jury, chaired by Klaus Hellwig and composed by Pietro Borgonovo, Cristiano Burato, Vincent Coq, Udo Gefe, Andrea Lucchesini and Claus-Christian Schuster, at the end of the final with orchestra, decided not to award the first prize of the Viotti Piano Competition 2021. The second prize was awarded ex-aequo to Airi Katada and Anton Mejias, while the third prize was awarded to Kisuk Kwon. The two winners of the second prize each won a check for 9000 euros offered by the City of Vercelli thanks to the bequest of the lawyer Eusebio Ferraris who also supports the third prize worth 6000 euros. The audience prize was awarded to Anton Mejias. The Soroptimist Club of Vercelli awarded Airi Katada as the best female competitor of the Viotti 2021 Competition.

All three finalists approached the instrument when they were very young and continue their training in the best international schools. Airi Katada, winner of several piano competitions, has been studying at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts with Anna Malikova and Roland Keller since 2015. Anton Mejias started playing the piano at the age of five. In 2010 he moved to the youth department of the Sibelius Academy and is currently studying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, USA with Gary Graffman and Ignat Solzhenitsyn. Kisuk Kwon is also a prize winner in International Piano Competitions. He is currently studying at the Detmold School of Music in Germany.

The appointment with the Viotti International Music Competition will be renewed in 2022 with the Opera Singing Competition scheduled for October.