The breakdown of the 228 applicants by country/region shows that China sent the most applicants (43) followed by Korea (42), Russia (27), Japan (24) and the United States (14). Looking at the 98 contestants who passed the preliminary selection and expressed intention to participate in the competition, Korea accounts for the highest number (15) followed by Russia (14), Japan (11), China (9), Ukraine (7) and the United States (6). The average age of the contestants is 22.4, and indeed 29 contestants have been prizewinners in other competitions under the World Federation of International Music Competitions.

Preliminary selection: a new attempt
This year, a new selection method based on the performance video on DVD was adopted for the first time. The preliminary selection was conducted by Akira Wakabayashi, Jury member of this year’s Competition, Katsunori Ishii, a pianist from Hamamatsu who joined only the preliminary selection, and Hiroko Nakamura, chairperson of the Jury, over 5 days in early June.
　Until the previous Competition, the preliminary selection was conducted in a form of auditions in overseas cities for the applicants who did not pass the document screening review but still wished to participate in the competition. While the significance of the auditions -- Rafał Blechacz, the top-prize winner in the 5th Competition, was discovered in the Vienna audition -- is respected, the new DVD-based selection method was adopted for this year’s Competition with a view to allowing all the applicants to have their performances reviewed for selection.
　The following are the reviewers’ impressions and comments about the new method, which were collected during the preliminary selection.

Hiroko Nakamura (Chairperson of the Jury / Pianist)
----- I heard that Asian contestants had a big presence also this year.
　 Perhaps partly due to last year’s global economic depression, European contestants seemed to find it a little hard to travel all the way to Japan. Contestants from China, Taiwan and Korea were more conspicuous, maybe because of relatively lower travel cost.
----- What is your impression about the DVD-based selection?
　In the Hamamatsu Competition, this was the first time to select the contestants by video performance on DVD and I think we learned a lot. Firstly, the conditions of the video varied from applicant to applicant: some had good sound quality and some had distorted sound, depending on the recording condition. This is a problem because, even if this contestant is a good pianist, we cannot even evaluate them properly if the sound condition is too bad. I would say, though, it is also a part of the applicant’s responsibility (to ensure certain quality of video recording). If it is not possible to hold auditions in different cities around the world, it is preferable to have a video crew shooting the applicants’ performances in different cities and record them on DVD for selection, as it was previously done in the Cliburn Competition. With such a system, we can ensure a certain level of fairness in the recording condition.
----- What were your criteria for the selection?
　I reviewed the performances to see whether the players have reached the level where they can perform in front of the audience of the 1st Stage. But at the same time, I wanted to have the contestants from as many different parts of the world as possible, since this event is also an international festival. As it was not a very hard job for me to select about 100 from the 229 applicants, I tried to view them in a favorable light.

Akira Wakabayashi (Jury member / Pianist / Specially Designated Professor at Toho-Gakuen School of Music / Professor at Toho-Gakuen Graduate School)
----- What types of contestants did you give high marks to?
　As I hadn’t really had the experience of reviewing many recorded performances like this, I had some difficulties in drawing a certain line for selection at the beginning. However, I could quite quickly determine the level of the performer’s basic techniques by listening to a sonata and an etude in the repertoire. Also, if the performer has a clear vision as to how they want to play the piece, I can feel it when I hear them play. This is the type of contestants who make me happy, and I reflected this point in my evaluation.

Katsunori Ishii (Pianist / Associate Professor, Piano Faculty, Tokyo College of Music)
----- What is your impression about the DVD-based selection?
　The acoustic conditions were very much different from applicant to applicant. The conditions varied by the instrument and by the environment of the hall; some applicants, for some reasons, recorded in their own rooms. It was a little hard for me to take such different circumstances into consideration and to sometimes imagine how it would actually sound.
----- What are some points that you looked at in the review?
　As the repertoire instantly told me some basic things about the player, I tried to find out a message they wanted to convey in their performance, listened to the message and evaluated them.