DETAILS:

Time: 04 - 22 October 2000.

Attended by 94 pianists from 25 countries. The qualification system has been essentially different from the set of regulations adopted at the preceding editions of the Competition. The assessment of the quality of each contestant's interpretation was based upon two systems.

System A
consisted in putting a mark in the form of a "yes" or "no" statement at the name of each participant on the list. After each of the first three stages this system meant the admittance /or non-admittance/ of the participant to the next stage; it became also the base for awarding special prizes.

System B
was based on the number of points:

1. after the 1st, 2nd and 3rd stage on the scale ranging from 1 to 100 acting as supporting system
2. after the final stage on the scale of points ranging from 1 to 12 acting as system applied at awarding the statutory prizes.

After completing the auditions of a given stage and performing the calculations, the Jury members were presented with the auditions results in the form of a list of figures showing the "yes" statements arranged in the order from the highest to the lowest figure, without, however, the arithmetical averages of point marks. The Jury then decided in open ballot at which item the record of "yes" statements qualifying the contestants to be admitted to the next stage should be closed. In case of a failure to select a fully numbered group of participants to be admitted to the next stages by applying of the System A, the System B was employed and admitted were the subsequent participants who gained the highest number of points. The number of competitors to be admitted to the particular stages has been stipulated in the Set of Rules of the Competition.

Prize I - Yundi Li (China)

Prize II - Ingrid Fliter (Argentina)

Prize III - Alexander Kobrin (Russia)

Prize IV - Sa Chen (China)

Prize V - Alberto Nose (Italy)

Prize VI - Mika Sato (Japan)

The Fryderyk Chopin Society and Warsaw City Council ex aequo prize for the best performance of a polonaise - Sa Chen (China), Yundi Li (China)

The Polish Radio prize for the best perfomance of the mazurkas - not awarded.

The National Philharmonic prize for the best performance of a concerto - not awarded.

Honourable mention:
Ning An (U.S.A.), Etsuko Hirose (France), Valentina Igoshina (Russia), Radosław Sobczak (Poland), Nicolas Stavy (France), Mihaela Ursuleasa (Romania).