Joseph Bologne International Piano Competition
The 2025 Joseph Bologne International Piano Competition
Presented by the Elon University Department of Music
For High School Pianists (Grades 10-12)
Feb. 1, 2025 | Registration opens Oct. 1
Yeager Auditorium, Center for the Arts, Elon University
Sponsored by Steinway and Sons 
About the Competition
High school pianists in their sophomore through senior years are invited to participate in the 2025 Joseph Bologne International Piano Competition. Bologne was an 18th century composer of African descent who became one of the Paris music scene’s leading composers, conductors and violinists. This inaugural competition celebrates his music and legacy, bringing his compositions into greater prominence in the 21st century.
Registration opens Oct. 1, 2024
Refer back to this page beginning on that date to register online. There is no cost or preliminary recording required to enter. The deadline for entry is Dec.1, 2024.
Eligibility:
High school pianists in grades 10-12.
Prizes:
- First Prize: $1,000
- Second Prize: $600
- Third Prize: $300
- The Music by Black Composers Prize, sponsored by the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation, for the best performance of a work by Joseph Bologne
- Several additional discretionary awards
Steinway Spirio piano provided by:
Finalists will receive a professional quality recording of their performance courtesy of Elon’s Music Production and Recording Arts program.
Repertoire requirements:
Students are to prepare a memorized program lasting between 10 to 20 minutes consisting of:
- One of the following pieces by Joseph Bologne from the newly published “Complete Keyboard Works of Joseph Bologne,” available here:
Volume 1:
- Sonata #2 in G minor (second movement optional)
- Sonata #4 in D major
- Sonata #5 in B-flat
- Rondeau in C major
Volume 2: (Available in August 2024)
- Tempo di Minuetto in D major
- Sonata #3 in D major
- Sonata #6 in E-flat major
- Aria Con Variazione
Volume 3: (Available by October 2024)
- Allegro in E-flat Major
- Sonata # 9 in D Major
- Sonata #10 in F Major
- Sonata #11 in C Major
- Two or more additional pieces of the pianist’s choice to complete a program lasting between 10-20 minutes (time limit strictly enforced). Pianists are encouraged to choose repertoire from different stylistic eras.
Schedule:
- Oct. 1, 2024: Registration opens
- Dec. 1, 2024: Registration Deadline
- Dec. 20, 2024: Competition schedule released by this date
- Jan. 31, 2025, 7:30 p.m.: Bologne Competition Gala Opening Recital and reception featuring violinist Maya Kilburn and pianist Ray Kilburn. All are encouraged to attend.
- Feb 1, 2025: Competition Day! Preliminary round takes place in the morning and early afternoon (closed to the public). Final round recital open to the public begins at 7 p.m.
Questions? Contact Professor Douglas Jurs.
Who was Joseph Bologne?
Commonly known as Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Bologne was an 18th-century composer who was born in 1745 on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe to a young woman of Senegalese descent and a French sugar cane plantation owner. His father brought him to France when he was 7 years old, and he grew up to be — among other things — one of the greatest fencers in the world, as well as a leading violinist, conductor, and composer in the Paris music scene. You might enjoy learning more about his life from the recent Searchlight Pictures film “Chevalier.”
Elon alumna Eden Brown (’07) and Associate Professor of Piano Douglas Jurs uncovered a manuscript of previously unpublished Bologne keyboard works in the French National Library which they are publishing in three volumes from Music by Black Composers and Subito Music.
Gala Recital:
January 31, 2025, 7:30 p.m., Yeager Auditorium, Center for the Arts
Maya Kilburn, violin
Maya Kilburn is a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at The Juilliard School, where she studies with Donald Weilerstein and Catherine Cho. Previous studies include several years with Mimi Zweig at the Indiana University Jacobs School String Academy, and earlier studies with Chin Mi Kim and Anna Vayman.
Now 21 years old, Maya grew up in Muncie, Indiana. She has won numerous competitions at the regional and national levels. Maya has performed more than a dozen times as concerto soloist with such orchestras as the Indianapolis Symphony, Southeast Missouri Symphony, Louisville Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Carmel Symphony, New World Youth Symphony, Orchestra Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, Muncie Symphony, and PRISMA Festival Orchestra. Other highlights include a solo appearance at the Kennedy Center, two 3-week concert tours throughout Argentina and Chile, 3rd place in the Eisemann International String Competition, and opportunities to perform with such artists as David Chan, Atar Arad, Jaime Laredo, Joseph Swenson, and Luke Hsu. She has been awarded fellowships at numerous festivals and has been coached by violinists such as Pamela Frank, Vadim Gluzman, Robert Lipsett, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Jinjoo Cho, Henryk Kowalski, Mauricio Fuks, Kyung Sun Lee, Richard Lin, Stella Chen, and Sarah Kapustin. Maya has performed in many recitals with her parents in the US, Japan, and Central America, and has been featured on both radio and television broadcasts. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, she was a featured guest at the Universidad National de Costa Rica and the La Castella Arts School in San Jose, Costa Rica, where she performed recitals, concerti with orchestra, and worked with violin students.
Maya plays on a 1710 Alessandro Mezzadri violin made in Ferrara, Italy, currently on a 10 year loan. When not playing the violin, she enjoys cooking, hiking, and spending time with her dogs Cocoa and Sophia.
Ray Kilburn, piano
Pianist Ray Kilburn has maintained a successful performing and teaching career that has spanned the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, Europe, and Asia. Critics have been unanimous in praise of his outstanding technical abilities and artistic temperament. Kilburn holds four performance degrees: the BM and LM from McGill University where his primary teacher was Tom Plaunt, and the MM and DM degrees from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where his primary teacher was Gyorgy Sebok. Currently on faculty at Ball State University School of Music, his students have distinguished themselves through winning prizes in national and international competitions and obtaining faculty positions at colleges and universities around the world. His wife soprano Yoko Shimazaki-Kilburn is also on faculty at Ball State University, and their 20-year old daughter Maya Kilburn is gaining recognition as a violinist and social media influencer.
More information to come.