As a pianist, piano competitions strike fear into my heart. I was on hand for a little of last year’s Sydney International Piano Competition and waiting backstage with the competitors felt like being a guard in Marie Antoinette’s cell in the Paris Conciergerie, watching the poor woman before she was wheeled off in a cart to the guillotine. We had been expecting at least one competitor to run screaming from the building, but no one did. Most waited patiently as the stage manager with his white gloved hands wheeled out the piano of their choice and even more weirdly, checked their stool height. We knew from an attached sheet whether a pianist was sitting at 27.5 cm, or 34.2cm above sea-level. I doubt the audience could tell the difference, but this pre-stooling meant that none of the competitors had the opportunity to twiddle their perch to the correct height, thereby getting used to the stage and the environment.

I have no problem with the idea of music competitions (no-one is holding a gun to the head of the competitors so they go into it with their eyes open) but must a keyboard race be so formal and old-fashioned? In the first rounds of the Sydney competition at the Seymour Centre, the ABC Classic FM team had been asked by competition organisers to tell the audience off-air that no one should applaud until all the selected pieces had been performed. How ridiculous. This meant that the tension stayed high through the whole performance, and it restricted the audience from showing their appreciation. Can you imagine Usain Bolt running the 100 metres at the Olympics in silence, or Michael Phelps being told to swim his 19th gold medal attempt in a vacuum? A musician needs encouragement and support from the audience, especially in the dry and horrible acoustic conditions of the York Theatre, where as soon as the sound left the piano it died like a clay pigeon at the hands of Michael Diamond.

After only three days I have to say I was piano-ed out. I think any audience member who sat through the whole experience deserves a medal, and the judges too; the mere fact that they remained awake is a testament to their professionalism. When it came down to it though, either the pianist had something to say, or they didn’t. I was sitting in the broadcast booth chatting with Margaret Throsby when Nikolay Khozyainov started playing and immediately we both started listening. He immediately grabbed your attention, simple as that. No amount of cascading octaves and finger dexterity will amaze when there is no musical communication behind the flamboyance. To me it is as a simple as a binary switch – the magic is either on or off. Nikolay went on to win second place but, more importantly, bagged the People’s Choice Award.

The whole palaver of the funereal Mickey Mouse white gloves and the museum silence of the audience reminded me how stitched up the classical music world is. It really needs to loosen up if it wants to remain a going concern in the 21st century. I look forward to the day when the stilted, formal, audience-distancing 1950s style of classical music disappears, and a new generation takes over. Why should we slavishly follow the formality of European competitions? We should breed our own style of Piano Olympics, a stage decorated in stuffed kangaroos where pianists are judged not just on their technical ability, but their connection to the audience. I would do away with judges entirely. Many of these old piano teachers and pedagogues see only mistakes and blemishes where we might see panache and individualism. Stop piano competitions being little fiefdoms of the keyboard mafia and let the audience vote with their hands. Piano Idol would be a more interesting way of going about it. Let the audience text in their favourites after each round and I guarantee by the end of the competition you will have a winner that will go on to forge an exciting relationship with the public.