Let there be light: Competition publishes jury’s marks

In a rare act of total transparency,  the Rina Sala Gallo piano competition in Monza has revealed the marks given by every member of the jury to every contestant. The publication was provoked by a jury walkout on the part of the French pianist Pascal Rogé, who claimed the result was being rigged by Italians in favour of their compatriots.

M. Rogé, it appears, may have been unaware of this competition’s rule that exceptionally high or low marks given by one judge to particular candidates would be discounted. Be that as it may, the spread of marks is interesting – especially those given to some who did not make the semi-finals. You can read the markings here.

M Rogé’s remarks on the competition have provoked international discussion. However, if the unintended result is an opening up of competitions to ensure honesty and accountability then the Rina Sala Gallo will have done the tainted competition industry a great service.

This should be the benchmark by which future competitions are run.

The Competition today issued the following press release:

Rogé toasts to his own voting errors. 

French pianist’s own marks determine the victory of the pianists he wanted to exclude, and  accuses his colleagues of fraud. 

With regard to Pascal Rogé’s statements on his Facebook page, subsequently published on SlippedDisc, the analysis of the jurors’ marks reported in attachment and explained below, shows that Mr. Rogé’s votes were prevalently maximum (10.00) or very close to the lowest (3.00 in the 1st & 2nd Rounds – 6.00 in the 3rd Round) marks.

Regarding the total number (46) of votes in all three rounds, he gave the highest mark 14 times and the lowest mark 21 times. However, the official rules of the competition, which every juror received via e-mail, state clearly that the lowest and highest marks, in the first three rounds of the competition, would have been invalidated. This is also stated clearly on the competition’s website: www.concorsosalagallo.it

As a result, the final outcome, which was based on the combined average of all three rounds marks, turned out to be entirely opposite to what Mr. Rogé wanted and expected. He thus managed, in the Third Round, to invalidate the votes he gave to Yano Yuta (10.00) and Yejin Noh (10.00), whereas his vote to Atsuko Kinoshita (8.50), the candidate whose performance of Schubert and Debussy he denigrated on his Facebook page to all those who had access to it, actually facilitated her admission into the Final. Similarly, his intention to exclude Pascalucci and Bortoluzzi, the Italians he accused to be “favoured” by the “mafia”, by giving them the lowest marks, produced the diametrically opposite effect. As a consequence, Maestro Rogé preferred to turn the tables and promptly leaving the competition, discredit the work of his colleagues, who quite to the contrary, acted in accordance with the rules that they had accepted and signed.

For these reasons, the Rina Sala Gallo Association requires Maestro Rogé to issue an immediate written apology  for failing to fulfill the duties that his position required, i.e. to respect the rules, and for having abandoned the jury –  unilaterally terminating  the contract he had signed – divulging false and misleading information, and discrediting the Competition, which will now proceed with a legal claim for damages.

Monza, Oct. 6th 2014