Music competitions have made great influence on the development of performing classical musicians in the 20th and 21st centuries. From an early childhood music artists are subjected to strong music contests on local, national and international level.
While it is unpossible to measure art virtually, music contests provide a stage for musicians and draw audiences which have a possibility to listen to new music. In separate countries like South Africa an international music contest provide the people and artists with an essential opportunity to listen to world class music artists from all over the world. But there are no guarantees of objectiveness in the art world, and no relevance in measuring artistic performances: presence of corruption and unjust contest results, in spite of artistic talent and hard work.
Michael Johnson (a founder and member of the London International Piano Contest) states that contests can waste the time of pianists who could have done something more productive than to practise a concrete repertoire with a specific set of jurymen in mind. Today, there are about 750 international music contests, and winning one of them does not certainly help the musician to make a career.
In addition, the style and creative capabilities of an artist can be strictly defeated in his bid to please the often accurate requirements of a jury. Jurymen could practise discrimination against artists who perform in a way, which is different from the way they would have taught. This could result in the vendible situation of participants paying for master classes with jurymen before a contest, for the purpose of improvement of their chances to win.
Whereas many participants find it difficult to practise their art and implement their potential under these circumstances, they might feel cloistered in a scenario that does not leave them with many alternatives. Nevertheless, in accordance with Italian pianist Robert Prosseda: "My great luck was to not win a first prize in a major competition. I was forced to find alternative ways to become known." Robert made a career by playing some rare works by Mendelssohn.
The public, press, agents and record labels can become part of a resolution to the problem of contests building a monopoly over the evolution of the musical world, by simply relying on their own competence and insight when proposing performers to sign a contract.