Oct. 2 marks the opening ceremony of the 2025 International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. Out of 700 applicants, Oberlin students make up seven of the fewer than 80 pianists who will compete in October. All seven study under Professor of Piano Dang Thai Son, who has a profound history with the competition. Not only have many of his students taken home medals in the past, including Bruce Liu who won first place in 2021, but he himself was the first Asian pianist to win the competition in 1980.

“It’s like a family business,” Dang said. He is also serving on the jury this year and performing in the opening ceremony alongside Liu.

The competition began in 1927 and is now held every five years, with its centennial anniversary approaching. It’s one of the most important competitions for classical pianists.

“Unfortunately, without competitions, it’s not so easy to start a career,” Dang said. “How can you let people know about you? Especially pianists — we have so many. … The name of Chopin and the music of Chopin go to the heart. It’s the number one competition that’s recorded.”

Competing Oberlin students visited Dang’s home in Canada this summer for intensive coaching sessions while school was out. There, they worked alongside one of Dang’s two New England Conservatory graduate students, who are also competing this year.

However, these preparations started way earlier. Three of these students competed in the 2021 competition and have been preparing since then. Competitor Athena Deng, OC ’25, performed all 24 Chopin Preludes in her senior recital last April. She described her process when approaching the prolific piano composer.

“It’s a lot of practice, but also a lot of research and relearning,” she said. “In the process of preparing for this competition, I was inspired to step away from referencing old recordings and trying to understand him from others’ opinions, so that I could start to form my own interpretation based on what came from him firsthand, whether it be his scores or letters.”

Competitor Arisa Onoda, who is currently pursuing her Artist Diploma at Oberlin in Piano Performance, said she has been preparing even longer.

“When I was nine years old, I went to Warsaw to listen to the Chopin competition,” she said. “That was the first time I felt I wanted to participate in the Chopin competition, and after that, Chopin was in my repertoire. … For the past year, I focused more, but not only for the competition, for my own musical life.”

Onoda will compete with Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-sharp major, which she started working on when she was around 13.

“I don’t know why, but somehow, his music touched my heart,” she said. “It’s quite natural for me to play that composer. I don’t need to fight or struggle [even though] it’s very difficult music, because it’s more like singing than playing the piano.”

Deng shares Onoda’s love for Chopin’s music.

“There’s something about his music that really speaks to me and feels oddly familiar, in a way that transcends the differences in when, where, and how we lived,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve felt this as strongly with any other composers.”

At age 67, Dang has spent a lifetime with Chopin. He’s recorded most of his work and is a testament to the transcendence Deng references.

“I spent my childhood in Vietnam during the wartime,” Dang said. “I did not live in a big city. I was born in Hanoi, and then we had to evacuate without the music school to the mountain. And how long did I stay there? Eight years. So, my career is even more special. I was training with the conditions of the stone age — no civilization, no electricity, forget about recordings … barely a few upright pianos could move to the mountains. Where before there were bridges to cross, they were bombed, they were broken. So one piano was carried to the mountain by buffalo. I was born in a lucky music family. My mother is a pianist and she taught in school, so in the mountains, at day, and at night in the darkness with only candle light, she played Chopin — Mazurkas, Nocturnes — I fell in love with this music.”

Dang described this competition as the “Olympics” for pianists. His “athletes” already traveled to Warsaw last spring for preliminary rounds and will return for three weeks in October for four rigorous rounds of performance. The first five days are dedicated to the first round alone, in which each competitor presents a half-hour of music. After a day’s break, four days of the second round of performances ensue, this time a 40–50 minute program, followed by three days of round three, featuring a 50–60 minute program. Oct 17 marks the anniversary of Chopin’s death, and competitors attend a memorial service, after which the final round is held. The last four competitors perform one standardized piece and one of Chopin’s two concertos. No repertoire is allowed to be repeated between rounds. It’s an intense process that requires pianists to hold a huge amounts of music at their fingertips, but Dang’s unique background prepares students for these challenges.

“It’s not only my love and my passion, but I have experience,” Dang said, “not only experience with performing, but even experience with how to build the program from one round to the other, to climb to the summit.”

This Sunday, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., all the Oberlin competitors will present their 30-minute programs in Warner Concert Hall. They’re calling it a Marathon from Oberlin to Warsaw, a celebration of the excellence of this group of pianists.

“They share the celebration,” Dang said, “but also share the responsibility.”