Interview: Piotr Alexewicz – 5th Prize Winner of 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition

From October 2nd to 23rd 2025, one of the most esteemed international piano competitions in the world, the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition was held in Warsaw, Poland.
At this 19^th edition competition, three finalists selected the Shigeru Kawai SK-EX full concert grand piano, and won the prizes.

We asked Mr. Piotr Alexewicz, the 5th prize winner of this 19th edition’s competition about his feeling and thoughts for the competition and the Shigeru Kawai piano.

Interview

How did you feel about winning the prize?

I’m extremely happy and honored to have received the fifth prize and the audience prize at the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition.
Of course, for me, it’s a huge privilege and honor to be awarded such a prize in my home country. It’s an incredible opportunity to develop and share music with even more around the world. And I’m truly happy and honored to be able to present what I can do best to audiences around the world.

What are your impressions of the Shigeru Kawai SK-EX full concert grand piano?

Of course, piano selection is always a very hard process, but whenever I have to choose a piano, I always try to find the most colorful one, with the biggest variety of tones and colors. Kawai has a very particular quality, which is kind of chamber-like — I would call it a “chamber sound.” It’s not a piano that is loud or very open; it’s rather a very intimate instrument, one that is able to shape the music in the most natural and beautiful way. And especially worth mentioning here is that this Kawai’s instrument really helps a lot — it’s inspiring, and it greatly helps the pianist to achieve their goals while playing.

What are your plans for future activities and further challenges?

Talking about future goals, it’s very hard to find just one answer.
Of course, my future goal is certainly to share music, to play even more concerts, and to travel a lot.
One of the things I wish to do is certainly to make more recordings. I would like to record, probably, some complete Chopin works — not every piece that he wrote, but I would be very happy to record the complete Nocturnes for now. I would also be extremely happy to do another project that does not consist of music by Fryderyk Chopin. This idea is a little bit different — to record an album where the center is Chopin, but actually there are no pieces by Chopin. So, pieces like Rachmaninov Chopin Variations, and many other works by composers who were certainly inspired by Chopin. This is one of my dreams.
And my biggest dream is still simply to communicate through music — to keep going, to keep doing what I love, to share my love of music with others, to connect with people. This is exactly what I really want to do in the future, and I truly hope that it will become a reality.
Today, I just finished a rehearsal at the National Forum of Music in Wrocław, in the big hall, and right in front of me, there is a wonderful Shigeru Kawai piano, SK-EX, on which I’m going to play my recital tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to it, and I want to thank you for providing these wonderful instruments.
I’m really looking forward to any occasion when I can have a Shigeru Kawai at my disposal.

About Piotr Alexewicz

Born on 9 April 2000, he studied under prof. Paweł Zawadzki in Wrocław and Konstantin Scherbakov in Zurich and has also studied with Nikolai Demidenko. Runner-up in the Hilton Head International Piano Competition (2025), he has twice won the National Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw and also received the Professor Zbigniew Drzewiecki Prize in the 18th Chopin Competition. In 2024 he won the Texas Piano Concerto Competition and the Schenk Competition in Switzerland, receiving all the special awards. He has performed at prestigious venues such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Salle Cortot in Paris, Sala São Paulo, National Forum of Music in Wrocław, Warsaw Philharmonic and Symphony Hall in Osaka. He has worked with distinguished conductors, including Howard Shelley, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Andrzej Boreyko and Marek Pijarowski. He has recorded two albums for the Fryderyk Chopin Institute.

Official Instagram: @piotr_alexewicz

Final round performance

About the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition

Established and inaugurated in 1927, the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition is one of the oldest music events of its kind in the world. 2025 will see the beginning of a series of special celebrations for its centenary. In the course of the past century, the formal aspects of the competition have constantly evolved, resulting in changing the number of its stages, programme, judging criteria, prizes, and also the media through which audiences have experienced the competition recitals. There have only been two elements of the Competition that have remained unchanged since its inception: Chopin’s music and the fascination of pianists and audiences alike. Another chapter in the hundred-year-long tradition is opening before us. The competition is organised by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute.

Official website: https://www.chopincompetition.pl/en

About the Shigeru Kawai SK-EX full concert grand piano

Unveiled in 2001 as the flagship instrument of the Shigeru Kawai line, the SK-EX concert grand piano is hand-crafted in limited numbers following a unique ‘prototyping’ creation process. In order to achieve the supreme range of expression required in a concert piano, each instrument utilises a variety of carefully selected materials, with premium aged spruce soundboards. Shigeru Kawai instruments adopt the advanced Millennium III keyboard action, featuring extended wooden keys and advanced ABS Carbon action parts, providing superior speed and responsiveness than conventional wooden action parts, allowing pianists to express a greater range of feeling and emotion in their performance.

Shigeru Kawai official website: https://www.shigerukawai.jp/en/