Legal
What you agree to when you enter, and what we commit to in return.
The competition is open worldwide. Every category states the range of birth dates it accepts, and your date of birth must fall inside that range — the entry form only offers the categories you are eligible for. Entrants under 18 need a parent or guardian to sign a consent form, uploaded with the entry.
What you play is set by your category, not chosen freely: each round lists the works it requires, and the Senior and Masters programmes must each include one work from the published list of compulsory pieces. The round page states its playing time; the compulsory piece is not counted towards it. The recording itself stops automatically at the technical limit for your category, which is longer than the round so the compulsory piece fits alongside the programme.
The fee is set per category and charged in euros. Online card payment through Stripe is being set up and is not open yet; until it is, the organiser confirms each payment and tells you how to make it. Recording unlocks once the payment is confirmed. Fees are non-refundable once the official recording attempt has started — the one exception is the prize for 4th to 6th place in a category, which returns the entry fee to those entrants.
Each entrant has exactly one official recording attempt, made in the browser and uploaded directly from it. Record in full HD (1080p): the site warns you if your camera is sending less, and a lower-resolution take is judged as it arrives. 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 — and the organiser can invalidate a recording that clearly fails them. If the attempt is interrupted by a technical failure, the organiser can invalidate it and grant a new one — that is the only way a second attempt is possible.
Every juror scores every recording, anonymously: the jury sees an entry code, a category and a programme, never a name. The final score is the average of those scores; with five or more scores the highest and the lowest are dropped first. Once a result is finalised, scores cannot be changed.
Editing the recording, playing back a pre-recorded performance, or entering under false details leads to disqualification. The organiser decides, and the decision is recorded.