Transparency In International Music Competitions

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the necessity of changing the current judging process in music competitions. The tradition of confidential voting has often led to an unnecessary lack of transparency, which contributed to the allegations of unfairness that have plagued many competitions over the decades.

Some competitions have recently begun to make votes and scores of their juries public in order to address this problem, and this is an important step in the right direction.

There is no good reason for keeping the numbers confidential in competitions. The practice of disclosing them would not only help prevent accusations of partiality and injustice, but may even encourage the judges to be even more attentive to judging to the best of their abilities, objectively and fairly.

Also, the participants, who dedicate several months of their lives to preparing for each competition, should have the right to know how their work was assessed by each judge.

We understand the subjective nature of music, and are aware of the fact that, even with full disclosures, there may always be disagreement over the results of music competitions. Nevertheless, this change would bring about much more transparency and credibility.
Our initiative has so far gained the strong support of such prominent musicians as Sergey Babayan, Bruno Canino, Pascal Devoyon, Leslie Howard, Eugen Indjic, Anna Malikova, Wolfgang Manz, Lev Natochenny, Piotr Paleczny, John Perry, Nikolai Petrov, Michael Roll, Erik Tawaststjerna and Dina Yoffe; as well as the enthusiastic support of Gustav Alink and his Alink-Argerich Foundation. Other supporters include the music-journalist Carsten Dürer and Peter Grote.