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 five books, as well as numerous articles in international journals, on music.

Pianists who won First Prize in the Peabody Mason Piano Competition include Robert Taub, David Korevaar, Peter Orth and Tsotne Tsotskhalashvili.

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 Casadesus 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.