Acceptance of the Rules
By applying, participants accept the conditions of the competition: the Rules of the Competition, the scoring system, and the decisions of the jury as final.
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Legal
The conditions of participation, and the organiser's commitments in return.
By applying, participants accept the conditions of the competition: the Rules of the Competition, the scoring system, and the decisions of the jury as final.
The competition is open to pupils, to students of music conservatoires and academies, and to their graduates, from every country and regardless of nationality or religion. Each category states the range of birth dates it accepts, and the applicant's date of birth must fall within that range; the application form offers only the categories for which the applicant is eligible. Applicants under 18 require a consent form signed by a parent or guardian, uploaded with the application, and every applicant submits a photograph with the application.
The programme is determined by the category and is not freely chosen: each stage lists the works it requires. The stated programme duration may be exceeded by no more than 2 minutes. Playing from the score is permitted only for works of contemporary music, and competitors must be appropriately dressed for their performance. The recording itself stops automatically at the technical limit for the category.
The entry fee is €200 in every category, charged in euros. Online card payment through Stripe is being set up and is not yet available. Recording is unlocked once the organiser has confirmed the payment. The entry fee is not refunded if a competitor withdraws from the competition after applying. The prize for 4th to 6th place in each category is €200, a refund of the entry fee.
Each stage has exactly one official recording attempt, made in the browser by the deadline for that stage and uploaded directly from it. The recording must be made in full HD (1080p): the site warns if the camera is sending less, and a lower-resolution recording is evaluated as received. The recording must also meet the published framing and sound requirements: a fixed landscape shot with the whole player and the open bellows in view, a neutral background, and peaks below −3 dBFS. The organiser may invalidate a recording that clearly fails them. If the attempt is interrupted by a technical failure, the organiser may invalidate it and grant a new one; this is the only way a second attempt is possible. Participants are not entitled to any fee or compensation from the organiser for recordings of their performances that the organiser publishes.
The jury evaluates the recordings anonymously: the jury sees an entry code, a category and a programme, never a name. A jury member does not score a competitor whom they teach or to whom they are related. Marks are given from 70.00 to 100.00, with two decimal places. For each competitor the highest and the lowest mark are removed, and the remaining marks are averaged. The decisions of the jury are final and cannot be appealed; when the results are announced, the marks of every jury member are made public.
Editing the recording, playing back a pre-recorded performance, or applying under false details leads to disqualification. The organiser decides, and the decision is recorded.