A photo from the Chopin Foundation.

Every five years, the Chopin Foundation of the United States hosts its national piano competition, and this year marks the 9th annual mounting of that event, which is set for February 21 through March 1 at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium.

Over those eight days, 24 young pianists – all U.S.-based, all born between 1985 and 1999 – will compete in four rounds, each round taking two days. The six finalists will perform on the weekend of Feb. 28-March 1 with the Chopin Foundation Orchestra, performing one of the two Chopin concertos.

The prize money is really something: The top prize is $75,000, which is the largest award of its kind in any U.S. competition. The two top winners are also automatically entered in the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.

Over the years, several pianists with big careers now have won recognition in the competition, including Ian Hobson, Jeffrey Kahane, Kevin Kenner, Gabriela Montero and Jon Nakamatsu. The contest got underway 40 years ago when the first contest was hosted by the American Institute of Polish Culture.

“Our mission is to support young, talented American pianists while promoting Chopin’s music,” Jadwiga Gewert, the executive director of the Miami-based Chopin Foundation, told me late last year. That includes not just the quinquennial competition but its seven free pairs of weekend recitals each season, which it hosts at the Broward County Main Library in Fort Lauderdale and Granada Presbyterian Church in Coral Gables. “This is always a young pianist, and always one of those young Americans we support. It’s either one of the past finalists or winners of our competition, or someone that may be a prospective candidate for the competition, or one of the Americans who was a winner of some other competition.”

The competition opens Friday night with a gala preview concert by the nine judges who will be hearing the 24 pianists. They include well-known national and area pianists such as Agustin Anievas, Margarita Shevchenko, Sergei Babayan, as well as Hobson, Kenner and Nakamatsu. That concert is set for 8 p.m. on Friday, February 19th (tickets are $35-$45).

From Saturday through the 26th, the pianists — 11 women and 13 men; the youngest is 17, and the oldest is 29 – will participate in the preliminary rounds, quarter-finals and semifinals, which run from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and again from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Admission to all of these sessions is free of charge.

The first part of the finals, which includes the orchestra, is set for 7 p.m. on Saturday the 28th, with the second part happening at 3 p.m. on Sunday, followed by the announcement of the prize winners. A total of $160,000 will be handed out; in addition to the $75,000 first prize, there is a second prize of $35,000; third prize is $20,000; fourth is $10,000; fifth is $5,000, and sixth is $4,000. Tickets are required for the two finals concerts ($15-$25 for day one, $25-$35 for day two).

Contests like this, and the performance opportunities they provide, are critical in advancing a career, no matter how gifted the player might be.

“Hard work and a big talent isn’t enough,” Gewert said. “It’s a matter of being in the right place at the right moment and being noticed by the right person. We try to do whatever we can do.”

It can be a great deal of fun to drop in on one of these competitions and hear some gleaming new talents tackle this formidable repertoire (there is a list of specific groups of pieces contestants must play in each of the stages of the competition). You never know: You could be hearing the next big star of the pianistic world, or one of the next generation’s best pedagogues.

But lovers of the piano, of Chopin, and of the cause of American classical music, will want to be around to catch at least some of these performances. If time doesn’t allow, you’ll be able to see them live-streamed from the foundation website, which might provide a nice distraction or accompaniment to your daily cubicle duties.

For more information about the competition, and to see pictures and bios of all 24 contestants, visit www.chopin.org.