with their award, and Mikhail Prokhorov’s Cultural Initiatives Foundation offered sponsorship in order to make a monetary prize possible. Irina Prokhorova commented that the critics’ feelings and actions were “civic consciousness in a genuine and not vulgar form.” Following the voting of twenty-four professional music critics, Lubyantsev emerged as the winner with 58.33% of the votes. Among the other top-scoring candidates were Eduard Kunz (the runner-up), Daniil Trifonov, and Aleksei Chernov. Bederova stated that the prize was awarded to Lubyantsev in recognition of his “clear artistic individuality and a fresh approach to the art of performing.” In a radio interview after the competition, jury member Mikhail Voskresensky said that he, as well as several other jury members, had supported Lubyantsev, but that others had been against him. He commented, “I think that what was, in my opinion, an error of the jury could turn out to be more beneficial to him…As happened with Pogorelich.” The day after Lubyantsev's exit, Valery Gergiev invited him to perform at the Mariinsky Theater. 2015 At the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition, Lucas Debargue, a Frenchman completely unknown beforehand and with a very different background and training from typical competitors, became the “audience’s favorite” and the “most talked-about” participant. In The Huffington Post, critic Olivier Bellamy wrote, “There hasn’t been a foreign pianist who has caused such a stir since Glenn Gould’s arrival in Moscow, or Van Cliburn’s victory at the Tchaikovsky Competition.” Nonetheless, Debargue finished in fourth place. The Moscow Music Critics Association, however, awarded him their prize for “the pianist whose incredible gift, artistic vision and creative freedom have impressed the critics as well as the audience.” Regarding the results of the competition, jury member Boris Berezovsky said afterwards on Russian radio:I’m not satisfied with the results of the competition. Our beloved Frenchman Lucas Debargue who deserved as a minimum a bronze, in my opinion even silver, was shifted to the fourth. Surprisingly, it was the decision of non-Russian jury members… We, Russian members of the jury, loved and supported him. However, the foreign members of the jury didn’t accept him. They kept saying that he is unprofessional and pushed him down with all conceivable means, fair or unfair.The Spectator remarked:In [a] movie Debargue would come first rather than fourth (i.e. last). But that doesn’t matter, because in the eyes of the public he was the real winner. The Moscow Music Critics Association thought