Preliminary selection The process of the Competition starts with the candidates submitting a video recording for their preliminary audition, up to 40 minutes long, consisting of a program selected from an extensive list supplied by the organizers of the Competition, the Chopin Society of Hong Kong. Each candidate’s video performance is judged by all the members of the preselection committee consisting of the local members of the jury, Gabriel Kwok, Li Ming Qiang and Eleanor Wong. Their decision is then processed by the organizers and communicated to the candidates. For this competition 40 candidates were chosen to enter Round I of the Competition.

Round I
Round I takes place over 5 days with each of the contestants playing in front of the full jury a 40 minute solo piano program from a prescribed list of pieces supplied by the organizers plus one piece of the candidates’ own free choice. The jury will choose 10 candidates from the 40 to proceed to Round II.
In all the Rounds of the competition the voting of the jury is completely secret and all the votes are counted and handled by the chairman and the executive secretary of the Society who are non-voting members of the jury. No member of jury knows how the other members voted. There is no discussion over the voting in order to ensure the secrecy of the choices of the jury members. As the jury is a collegiate body with no chairman, the chairman of the Society acts as convener and handles the purely administrative issues of the jury’s deliberations.
In the cases where jury members are or were teachers of any of the candidates, these jury members will not vote for the candidate(s) in question. The CVs of the candidates published in the official program of the Competition indicate clearly which of the candidates were ,or are being taught by which members of the jury. The chairman and the executive secretary of the Society will then adjust the votes in order to arrive to a weighted total for each candidate. In the case of a tied vote among two or more candidates, the jury will be asked to vote again but only to resolve the tied vote and not for the whole voting.

Round II
The 10 candidates chosen from Round I will now be joined in Round II by 8 first prize winners from competitions which are members of the World Federation of International Music Competitions, the Society being also a member of that Federation. Under the rules of the Competition these prize winners are allowed after applying to the organizers, to join Round II directly.
The 18 candidates will then play over 3 days in front of the full jury a solo piano program of not more than 75 minutes from pieces selected from a prescribed list by the organizers, including a compulsory piece specially commissioned and composed for the Competition by the word-famous Finnish composer E. Rautavaara. The jury will then vote and choose up to 6 candidates to go on to Rounds III and Round IV. Exactly the same voting procedures and rules outlined above apply in this stage of the competition.

Round III
The candidates chosen from Round II will then play a piano quintet with the Logos Chamber Group, chosen from a list of quintets supplied by the organizers.
There is no elimination or voting at this stage and the candidates go on to Round IV.

Round IV
The candidates will play a piano concerto, chosen from a list supplied by the organisers, with the Orchestra of the Competition conducted by Maestro Jose Serebier. The jury will then vote the ranking of the candidates in terms of the first, second ,third etc. prize winners. That decisions of the jury are final with no appeals of any form permitted. The rules of the voting are identical to those outlined above.