35th PTNA Piano Competition announced, on Aug. 22nd, that Tomoki SAKATA (17) won the Grand Prize this year. He showed stunning 50min solo performance at the semi-final round, and outstanding concerto performance at the final round with Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra (cond.Chikara Iwamura). Here is the program & VTR from the semi-final and final round of grade superior.

Beethoven: Sonate für Klavier Nr.15 D-Dur "Pastorale" Op.28
Takemitsu: Rain Tree Sketch II - In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen
Ravel: Gaspard de le nuit No.3"Scarbo"
Rachmaninov: Sonata for Piano No.2 Op.36
*Liszt: Konzert für Klavier und Orchester Nr.1 S.124/R.455 1mov. / 2-4 mov.

Please also see the winner's interview, joined by 2010 grand prize winner Ms.Tomoyo Umemura. (Japanese)

Tomoki Sakata, born in 1993, has performed in Kremlin Music Festival (invited by Nikolai Petrov), Prague Music Performance (by Tamas Vasary), as well as festivals and masterclasses in Netherlands, Austria, France, etc. He is the recipient of Yasuko Fukuda Prize in 2009, and one of the semi-finalist of Liszt International Piano Competition in Utrecht 2011. His current teacher are Hideto Nishikawa and Paul Badura-Skoda.

On the following day, 5th Yasuko Fukuda Scholarship Audition was held until Aug.26th, and Aimi Kobayashi (15) won the Yasuko Fukuda Prize.
This audition is to discover young outstanding talents under 18, and to help them study abroad. 9 candidates, chosen out of 32 applicants by document screening last March, took lessons from 3 international jury members each; Alexander Braginsky, William Grant Nabore and Katarzyna Popowa-Zydron. Here are the lesson reports (Japanese).

After the lessons and the final concert on 26th, 3 judges casted votes in order to select the Yasuko Fukuda prize winner who would receive 1 million yen of scholarship. Following Kobayashi, Misora Ozaki and Mayuko Motoyama won the prize of excellence, and received 300 thousands yen each. -> see result

Aimi Kobayashi, born in 1995, gave numerous performances in important places in the world, such as NY Carnegie Hall (4 times including JapanNYC 2011), Festival Chopin and his Europe in Warsaw, etc., and made debut CD from EMI Classics this spring. She is expecting recitals and concerto performances with The Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in autumn. She has been taught by Yuko Ninomiya since she was 8.