Last night was a long and exciting one, for all the piano lovers worldwide waiting for the final results of the XVIII Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition.
All the three "Fazioli pianists" admitted to the final round resulted to be prize winners, with the victory of Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu, the third prize awarded to Martin Garcia Garcia (also special prize for the best concerto performance) and the fifth prize of Leonora Armellini (in the Chopin Competition the first six finalists are considered to be prize winners).
"This represents one of the most successful achievements in the FAZIOLI history" - the Company founder and president Mr Paolo Fazioli says "and it comes right in the year of our 40th Anniversary: we want to joyfully share it with all the Fazioli team members, with the big Family of Fazioli Dealers, with all the Artists who supported us just out of true trust in our brand and product, with all those who followed us in years of passionate engagement and constant work in the name of technical improvement. THANK YOU ALL!"
WATCH BRUCE (Xiaoyu) FINAL CONCERTO
Piano manufacturing is, by its nature, a materials-intensive craft. A modern grand piano contains roughly 12,000 individual components. It requires carefully selected hardwoods — spruce, maple, beech, walnut — sourced from forests in multiple countries. It uses felt, leather, metal alloys, and chemical finishes. Building one well takes skilled labor spanning months.
In January 2026, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas included something that would have seemed out of place a decade ago: a piano technology exhibit generating genuine buzz alongside the televisions, smartphones, and AI gadgets that dominate the show floor. The products on display — connected instruments, app-integrated learning systems, multi-device MIDI setups — weren't novelties. They were the direction the piano industry is heading.
For years, the piano world operated on a fairly clean division: acoustic instruments for those who could afford the space and maintenance, digital pianos for everyone else. That division has been eroding steadily, and by 2026, it has given way to something more interesting — a category of instruments that refuses to sit neatly on either side of the line.
