Palm Springs International Piano Competition

The Palm Springs International Piano Competition (PSIPC) discovers, supports, and inspires promising young pianists through public competitions, offering a monetary prize and significant performance and career opportunities, while providing local community educational outreach and engagement. In addition, PSIPC showcases and highlights wide and diverse cultural musical offerings that serve Palm Springs, the Coachella Valley communities and beyond.

The triennial Competition brings the best young talent from around the world, providing over 40 hours of free live piano music to the community. Subsidized buses bring students to the Competition venue, which culminates in a performance with orchestra at the 1,100 seat McCallum Theatre. More than 20% of these tickets are provided at no charge to students, families, teachers as well as to low-income senior citizens. Our hands-on keyboard classes fill the gap left by a lack of music teachers at local elementary schools. Our focus has been on K-5 grade students. In 2025, we will initiate courses for middle school students. Middle and High school students are able to attend our live concerts through complimentary bussing and admission. In addition, our pianists perform at area Middle and High Schools, offering insight into careers in performance, music and administration/management. Our school wide assemblies expose students to the kind of music found in schools in large urban centers such as New York, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles.

Testimonials

"Students have benefited greatly from their participation in the "Hands On Music Classes" by Waring. Teachers report that on Wednesdays when students have their weekly lesson, school attendance is higher than on other days of the week. Student behavior has also improved, and many students have made connections between music and math." Sea View Elementary School

""VWIPC Junior Solo Competition was my first international competition, and it left me with many wonderful and positive memories. The environment was such that I made many new friends, and 5 years later, some of them are coming to my NY Phil debut this December. Palm Desert is also the best possible place to have a competition: great weather in the middle of winter, great people, and really caring and fun host families. I think the best part of winning this competition was further opportunities to perform - this is an extremely important thing for a young musician."
Jan Lisiecki, Solo Winner, 2007 Junior Competition *

*Jan was 12 when he won the Waring 2007 Junior competition. At 15, he was signed to a 5 CD deal with Deutsche Grammophone Records. By 17, Jan was in his second year of college, studying for a Bachelor of Music degree with Marc Durand who was one of the judges for the 2007 Competition. Now Jan is giving concerts in major halls throughout the world - both as a soloist and performing with major symphonies. He has major representation in London, New York, Berlin and Tokyo. He was named one of the top 100 musicians in the world under 30 years old.