What We Do
Ruth Monte Memorial Bach Competition
Prelude in C Major BWV 846, from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
(D-B, Mus.ms. Bach P 202)
The Ruth Monte Memorial Bach Competition is for high-school-age pianists who currently reside in North America. Held every three years, the competition requires contestants to play at least one prelude and fugue from Book 1 of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier as well as other solo repertoire of their choice. The Monte Competition takes place every three years.
Congratulations to our 2026 Monte Competition winners!
First Prize - Zarin Mehta
Second Prize - Meining Wu
Third Prize - TongTong Liu
Honorable Mention - John Samuell
Bach Prize - Meining Wu
Our thanks to the jury of three distinguished professors of piano from Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music: James Giles, Sylvia Wang, and Christopher Guzman.
Click here for detailed information on the 2026 Monte Memorial Bach Competition, which took place June 20-21 at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
The competition honors Ruth Monte, a longtime member of the American Bach Society. Trained as a pianist in her native Romania, Ruth Monte felt a particularly deep affinity for the music of J. S. Bach, and a distinctive feature of her recitals was the performance of the same work by Bach on the piano as well as the harpsichord or organ.
The 2023 Monte Competition took place June 9-10, 2023, at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. The judges were Daniel Schlosberg (Notre Dame University), Don Freund (Indiana University), and Paul Walker (Indiana University and the American Bach Society).
2023 Competition Winners:
First prize - David Fu
Second prize - Masanobu Pires
Third prize - Edie Park
The Ruth Monte Memorial Bach Competition is funded by the Ruth and Noel Monte Fund of the American Bach Society. Ruth and her husband Noel Monte, a dentist in New York City, were deeply devoted to Bach and his music, sensing its great impact on the human brain and culture throughout the world. To them, Bach represented a bright planet appearing in the sky only once, requiring centuries for the human mind to observe and fully comprehend. The Monte Fund supports and promotes this living musical treasure for present and future generations.