Why would anyone who hasn’t chosen the role of concert pianist want to practise until their fingers ache, so that they can play a 15-minute recital in front of an audience of 600 people? That’s exactly what the seven finalists of the first Pianist-Yamaha Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs will be doing on November 26 at Cadogan Hall in London. Among those competing for a £10,000 voucher towards a Yamaha piano will be a physics professor, a 78-year-old piano tuner, a textile magnate and a female finance director. But the prize is less important to them than the rare opportunity of playing in a London concert hall.

There are many hundreds of talented pianists yearning to show off their achievements, according to the editor of Pianist magazine, Erica Worth, who started the competition with Yamaha UK. “They all wrote in saying: ‘Thank you for allowing us to do this.’ Some of them have kids, they all have hectic lives, and they all come home every day and practise.”

This is the first national amateur piano competition to be held in Britain, and the organisers hope to make it a biennial event. Entrants must be over 30, amateur and not studying at a conservatoire.

Worth was amazed by the quality of audition tapes she received (the most popular piece was Debussy’s Clair de Lune), although she knew from her own experience that thirty and fortysomethings were coming back to the piano in droves. “At parties I only had to mention that I edited a piano magazine and two or three people would say: ‘Oh, I used to learn but I gave up; do you know a good teacher?’ ”

I was surprised to find that learning the piano is still a rite of passage for many children today, at a cost of between £10 and £25 for half an hour. Nearly 700 piano teachers are registered with the Incorporated Society of Musicians (many more are not), and its chief executive, Neil Hoyle, says: “I hear no lamentations from my members about falling numbers of pupils. There are, however, plenty of complaints about short attention spans and the music they demand to play.”

By Grade 5, the number of students has more than halved from Grade 1, and by Grade 8 it’s down to a seventh of the number.

Many good musicians are academically very able. Two of the finalists in the Pianist-Yamaha competition have PhDs in physics: Tim Morris is a professor of theoretical physics at Southampton University, while Sabine Vinck has advanced degrees in applied physics, education and finance. None of the finalists chose to take up the piano professionally, but if they had, would they now be concert pianists? Vinck is quite sure that she wouldn’t. “I knew I wasn’t good enough to be a world-class concert pianist and I didn’t want to teach the piano. I enjoy music more than my professional friends and I don’t have to make a living from it, so there’s no pressure.” Now she practises at dawn before her real job — directing finance programmes at the London Business School.

Morris enters amateur festivals several times a year. “I’m quite used to giving lectures at international conferences, but I’m far more nerve-racked at local music festivals,” he says.

One of the judges is the jazz pianist Jamie Cullum, who was bored by piano lessons at 6 and went on to teach himself by ear. “I did it because it was fun, and that’s how I progressed.” He won’t be concentrating on technique, he says. “If it sounds good, and I feel passion coming from it, that’s what I’m looking for.”

The final of the Pianist-Yamaha Piano Competition is on Nov 26 at Cadogan Hall. Tickets from www.cadoganhall.com