Suspicions of cheating at an online competition for classical music

Syntonia Musikproduktion is a company for music recording and live transmission with a focus on classical music. Based in Drezden, Germany, Syntonia has recently announced a competition for classical musicians, participating through a video recording.

The contest aims at providing opportunities for young taleneted musicians of promoting themselves to a wider audience. Solo and chamber musicians compete against each other and the winner is chosen by the audience. They can vote online at:
http://www.syntonia-musikproduktion.de/en/onlinevoting/

Despite the wonderful idea, it is already clear that some of the participants have tried to manipulate the contest through fake votes. A couple of days ago, the following note appeared on the voting page of the competition:

“There have been several attempts to manipulate the contest through multiple registration and voting. We would like to point out that these practices do not comply with the principles of the contest and cannot be tolerated. We will withdraw these votes within the next days and kindly ask our users not to use similar practices in the future.”

The competitions’ organizers clarified the matter for Modo’s Culturisms. They stated that there are “some individuals /who/ programmed automated registration systems which signed in several hundred times within a few minutes”.

Voting is open through 17 February 2012. The winner gets a professional audio recording and a recital at a prestigeous festival in Germany. Bulgarian participation is substancial with two prominent Bulgarian pianists standing out – Veneta Neynska and Viktor Valkov.

You can support them through registration and voting on Syntonia’s website:
http://www.syntonia-musikproduktion.de/en/onlinevoting/

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