Re: [Harp-L] The World Champion of Classical Harmonica...

[Markus Grassl <grassl@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

Please allow me to add a few comments to the discussion about the World 
Champion of Classical Harmonica.

The thread started on Susan Sauter who was features with Mario Nortmann 
on piano and accordion at SPAH 2010.
Susan and Mario won the competition at the World Harmonica Festival 
(WHF) 2009 in Trossingen in the Open Category.
Back then, the judges for this category were

- Mátyás Pribojszki (Hungary)
- Olivier Ker Ourio (France)
- Tom Stryker (USA)

Although I was not able to attend the festival back then, just looking 
at the list of entries I can imagine that it was really hard to rank the 
contestants as there was a huge varieties of line-ups and music styles.

Other categories included "Solo Chromatic with test piece". The test 
piece was "Flashback" by Marcello Parolini, who was also a member of the 
jury:

- Willi Burger (Italy)
- Kathrin Gass (Germany)
- Ho Pak Cheong (Hong Kong SAR, China)
- Marcello Parolini (Italy)
- Yasuo Watani (Japan)

The top-three in that category with 17 entries in total were

1. Arinori Inagawa (Japan), "Prelude and Dance" by Robert Farnon
2. Chun-lok Au (Hong Kong SAR, China),  "Prelude and Dance" by Robert Farnon
3. Chi-wing Wong (Hong Kong SAR, China), "Zigeunerweisen" by Pablo de 
Sarasate

There was also a chromatic solo category without test piece (46 entries) 
as well as a youth category (25 entries) without test piece either.

The next WHF will take place in fall 2013 in Trossingen. Initial 
information can already be found at http://www.whf-2013.de


Best

Markus