2 Pianists Split Pogorelich Contest Prize : Music: New Yorker Edith Chen and Australia’s Michael Kieran Harvey will each receive $75,000.

Edith Chen of New York and Michael Kieran Harvey of Melbourne, Australia, split the first-place award for the first Ivo Pogorelich International Solo Piano Competition, officials announced Thursday.

Final jury deliberations for the competition took place late Wednesday night, after the seventh and eighth finalists performed in Pasadena’s Ambassador Auditorium.

Chen and Harvey, who will each receive $75,000, both expressed delight at being recognized by the 13-member international jury.

“I’m actually surprised at this vote of confidence in me by the judges,” Harvey, 32, said in a phone interview Thursday morning. “Being one of the few (contestants) playing contemporary music, the jury took a risk in going with that.” Harvey’s finals program, heard Tuesday night, offered music by Prokofiev, Messiaen, Beethoven, Luciano Berio and fellow Australian Carl Vine.

Chen, 23, a native of Taiwan who studied in Los Angeles and at Juilliard, said she was “speechless” when told she had taken a first prize. “When I go into any competition, I never expect anything, because I am not in control of that--I’m only in control of what I do,” she said Thursday.

Second-prize awards were given to two Russians artists, Irina Plotnikova and Evgeny Zarafiants, each of whom will take home $5,000. Although a third prize was not awarded by the jury, competition founder Pogorelich chose to award $2,000 each to the remaining four finalists: Eteri Andjaparidze of the Republic of Georgia, Avo Kuyumjian of Austria, Olivier Cazal from France and Sergei Babayan of Armenia.

Additional prizes were scheduled to be announced at a Thursday-night awards ceremony concluding the 16-day competition.

* POGORELICH FINALE

Martin Bernheimer reviews the last two finalists in the competition. F20