Background
After closing the 20th century, when we blindly pursued the affluence of economic development and material wealth, we now have opened the door to the 21St century and have started to pursue spiritual richness. To be suitable to this spiritual age, Kagawa Prefecture, our native area, embraces a lot of superb cultural properties which attracts the minds of many people.
In addition, if we can constantly hold international artistic events at Sunport Takamatsu, newly opened in the spring of 2004, it would become possible to send a message from the culturally rich Takamatsu, Kagawa prefecture to the entire world.
Kagawa prefecture is at the top of the list in terms of the ratio of the number of students who enter music universities to the size of its area. Moreover, we have produced a wealth of talented vocalists. This shows that people here hold particularly high interest in classical music. As for the rate of households that have a piano, Kagawa is ranked number two in all of Japan. By holding a high level, international competition, we would like to facilitate the future dreams and goals of many young people including young artists, who would like to pursue the objective of becoming talented pianists.
Purpose
By creating an environment of communication with excellent world-class musicians, our aim is to develop a new culture of music here in Kagawa, giving opportunities to many young people who love music to have a dream and to reach their own targets of self-development. Therefore we have decided to hold “The Takamatsu International Piano Competition” in order to transmit and convey this message from the Sunport Takamatsu, our urban information center.
We will put every effort into making this Takamatsu International Piano Competitions an excellent venue for our hometown people to experience international culture and also an international cultural event something which we from Kagawa can be proud of. We further hope that this great, meaningful event will be embraced as a cultural heritage by the local community.
Intent
By holding the first international music event lead by local institutions in Takamatsu-city of Kagawa Prefecture, we intend to facilitate active development of local music culture and international cultural exchange.
Actually, many local citizens have volunteered to support this international cultural event, where they can have an opportunity to interact with expected participants from all over the world.
Feature
This competition will be somewhat different from other international piano competitions recently held in Japan. The competition will highlight the unique musical concepts of Takamatsu, Kagawa, while remaining in compliance with the standards established by the World Federation of International Music Competitions.
It is our hope that champions of this competition will make the world their own stage, and this competition will continue to be an excellent opportunity for talented musicians to gather.
Therefore, this competition features a supplementary prize that allows the champions to go on to the world stage.
The target is to make this competition suitable to the broad local cultural environment with a wide range of support from all parts of the community, such as the Kagawa Prefectural government, Takamatsu City, private companies and even local citizens.
