The Peabody Mason Piano Competition was
founded by the legendary French pianist, Paul Doguereau (1908-2000). Doguereau had a lifetime friendship with Maurice
Ravel, and studied with Paderewski, Emma Bardac (second wife of Claude Debussy), Marguerite Long, Emil von Sauer and Egon
Petri. For forty years, Doguereau presented Peabody Mason concerts free to the public in Boston and Cambridge, and invited some of the finest artists to Boston (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Emmy Ameling,
Maurizio Pollini, Glenn Gould and Ravi Shankar), often for the first time.
For the 200th anniversary of Chopin's
birth, Harrison Gradwell Slater, adopted son of Paul Doguereau, once more sponsors the Peabody Mason Piano Competition, which
draws from the entire opus of solo piano music by Frédéric Chopin. Slater, a Ph.D. in musicology, is the author of four books on music, as well
as numerous articles in international music journals.
Pianists
in the past who won First Prize in the Peabody Mason Piano Competition include Robert Taub, David Korevaar and Peter Orth.
Robert Taub, “…winner of
some of the most coveted international prizes, including the Peabody-Mason Award of Boston (1981).”
“Mr. Korevaar has won top prizes in
the William Kapell International Piano Competition and from the Peabody-Mason Music Foundation, as well as a special prize for his
performances of French music from the Robert Casedesus Competition.”
“First Prize in the 1979 Naumburg International Piano Competition, held in memory of
William Kapell, catapulted Peter Orth into the American musical mainstream
with a highly acclaimed recital debut in Alice Tully Hall. Not long afterwards he was awarded the Shura Cherkassky Prize
by the 92nd Street Y in New York and the Fanny Peabody Mason Award in Boston.
