Live Streaming the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition

We have just got back from Hastings where, for the last two weeks, we have been live-streaming the entirety of the Hastings International Piano Competition. This bi-annual competition featues 38 of the worlds best young pianists (under the age of 31) who compete for a place in the finals and the opporutnity to play a full concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This year’s winner, the 17 year old Japanese pianist Shunta Morimoto, performed a wonderful interpretation of Schumann’s second piano concert on Saturday evening. You can hear Shunta chatting about his win and performing a beautiful Chopin etude on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune (starts around 26 minutes into the programme).

Early rounds of the competition feature a 30 minute performance of two contrasting movements from different concertos. This round took place over 3 days at the Rye Creative Centre. Moving to the White Rock Theatre in Hastings, stage 2 featured a 30 minute solo performance. The penultimate stage saw 12 competitors playing a full concert with the Royal College of Music Prince Consort orchestra, before the two finals that featured six pianists playing with the RPO.

Every live stream that we did can be found in the competition archive here. The two finals are not available due to contractual restrictions with the orchestra involved.

For those of you with an interest in the technology of live streaming, we used a Roland VR-4HD video mixer and streamer together with four Blackmagic 4K Pocket Cinema cameras and a range of microphones. Our stream was sent via OBS software to our YouTube channel and then to the HIPCC website.

In addition to the live-streaming, we were also able to provide six digital pianos free of charge to the artist rehearsal facility. These pianos came to us via our relationship with Roland UK.

The collection of photographs above show some of the technology and other aspects of the HIPCC including the amazing 9 foot Steinway Model D concert grand piano that competitors played throughout the competition. This was maintained by a full-time Steinway & Sons technician. It was fascinating to learn about this wonderful instrument whilst we were in Hastings. And, of course, UCan Play works as an associate of Steinway & Sons in the supply of pianos to schools here in the UK.

Finally, we’d like to thank Stan Scott, Gabe Alexander and Josh Savage for all their live-streaming work during the event. Also, a massive thank you to Phil, Ian and the wonderful folk of Hastings for their warm hospitality throughout the event. You made us all feel very welcome indeed and we highly appreciated that.