Сергей
28.02.2005, 02:57
На всякий случай прошу прощения за обильный материал на английском.
Всё нижепроцитированное написано штатным критиком газеты Star Telegram, выходящей в Далласе. Критика зовут Уэйн Ли Гей (да, :-) не повезло с фамилией...), фактически он постоянно прикомандированный критик конкурса: сидит на всех прослушиваниях как самого конкурса (обложившись стопками нот прямо в партере :-) ), так и отборов на него, участвует в мероприятиях, проводимых жюри...
Тем кто заинтересуется и осилит чтение, предлагаю подумать о ставках на прошедших на конкурс; впрочем, большие ставки делать не советую, т.к. результаты могут удивить. :-) Впрочем, ждать осталось недолго: официально их обещали объявить во вторник.
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Для начала--предварительная статья:
And then there were 147
Wayne Lee Gay
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Published: Sunday, December 5, 2004
That distant rumble you hear is the sound of furious practicing as 147 ambitious young pianists prepare to audition for the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
All have the same goal: to be selected as one of the 30 musicians who will come to Fort Worth next year to compete in the world's most prestigious piano contest, at Bass Performance Hall.
The Cliburn Foundation has chosen, from among 270 written applications, those who will be invited to audition before a screening jury. Foundation President Richard Rodzinski studied each application, then followed up with phone conversations with teachers and references. He ended up selecting the highest number of auditioners in the history of the quad-rennial event.
All but two of them will perform a 40-minute live recital before a jury of five distinguished musicians who will travel, in January and February, to Utrecht, Netherlands; St. Petersburg, Russia; Lugano, Switzerland; New York City; and Fort Worth's Ed Landreth Auditorium for the auditions. (Because of various complications involved in arranging travel, two Chinese applicants will audition by videotape.)
It's noteworthy that the audition pool includes 12 of the 30 pianists who played in the main competition in 2001 -- an unusually high number. (Only five 1997 competitors auditioned in 2001; they included eventual gold medalists Olga Kern and Stanislav Ioudenitch.) Though there's no guarantee any returnees will pass the auditions this time, we could end up with an unusually high number of players returning to Bass Hall.
"Apparently, they were impressed by witnessing firsthand the enormous benefits that this competition gives," Rodzinski says.
The returnees include two 2001 finalists, Ukrainian-born Australian Alexey Koltakov and Wang Xiaohan of China, and two semifinalists, Davide Franceschetti of Italy and Sergey Koudriakov of Russia. Others trying again are Yuri Blinov (Belarus), Ying Feng (China), Tadashi Imai (Japan), Albert Mamriev (Israel), Maxim Manioukov (Russia), Alexandre Moutouzkine (Russia), Jong Hwa Park (South Korea) and Andrew Russo (United States).
The young pianists hail from 34 countries. There are 19 Americans trying out, but, as usual, Russia claims by far the largest number of contestants, with 29 (up from 20 in 2001). Thirteen applicants come from other former Soviet republics. The biggest surge, though, is in auditioners from China, who number 19 (up from 8 in 2001).
"This is just the beginning of a reflection of the huge interest in Western art music in China," says Rodzinski, who expects the Chinese presence in classical music to continue to grow in years ahead.
Though intensive practice is a way of life for pianists at this level, applicants have different approaches to preparing for the auditions.
One hopeful, Jade Simmons, 27, is a former Miss Illinois and first runner-up in the Miss America pageant. She says that in addition to a rigorous eight-hours-a-day practice routine, she'll run and lift weights to build stamina in the weeks ahead.
"My physical health always affects my playing," she says.
Simmons, a graduate of Northwestern University and Rice University who now lives in Humble, will perform works by Barber, Chopin and Liszt when she auditions in Fort Worth.
Minnesota native Gregory Anderson, 22, who studies at the Juilliard School in New York, has a busy career as a soloist and as a duo pianist with Elizabeth Roe, another applicant.
"I'm preparing for so many other things that I don't really have a strategy or plan for the audition," Anderson says. He admits, however, that the Cliburn Competition is something that he has been aiming toward since childhood. He'll perform music by Ravel and Liszt for his audition in New York.
Elizabeth Schumann, 22, who was selected to appear at the 2001 Cliburn but who withdrew just two weeks before the competition, says her decision to apply again was "a very personal decision and an important step in my life."
Schumann, who was the youngest pianist invited to compete last time, dropped out at the urging of her teacher at the Cleveland Conservatory, Sergei Babayan, who felt that she wasn't ready for the competition. Schumann has since moved to Los Angeles and now studies with John Perry at the Colburn School of the Performing Arts. She will audition in Fort Worth with music by Corigliano, Haydn and Liszt.
Among the three Fort Worth-based pianists who will compete, Juan Carlos Gutierrez-Cruz, 29, a native of Colombia who studies with John Owings at Texas Christian University, says that playing in the Cliburn Competition has "been a dream of mine for a long time."
He squeezes at least four hours of practice daily into a schedule that includes studio teaching at Arlington Heights Music Academy and serving as staff pianist at River Oaks United Methodist Church.
The Cliburn competition was founded in Fort Worth in 1962 in honor of the young Texas pianist Van Cliburn, who had made international headlines and warmed Cold War politics by taking a gold medal at the 1958 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. By the 1980s, the Cliburn had become the leading piano competition in the world; the international success of 2001 co-gold medalist Olga Kern further enhanced the event's international reputation.
After the auditions, round one of the Cliburn will take place May 20-24. Twelve competitors will advance to the semifinals, to be held on May 26-29, and six will compete in the final round, June 1-5. The gold-medal winner or winners will receive a cash prize of $20,000, management for three concert seasons, a recording contract from harmonia mundi usa and subsidized air travel.
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Отчёт об одном из дней прослушиваний в Утрехте:
Eccentric Ukrainian could make an impact
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
UTRECHT, Netherlands - His haircut's bad, his tie is atrocious. He stares at the ceiling and sticks his tongue out while he plays the piano.
But Ukrainian-born Alexei Grynyuk, 28, created a stir in the attentive audience of about 40 Monday night at the close of the second day of international screening auditions for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Initially educated in Kiev and now living in London, Grynyuk opened his allotted 40 minutes with a strikingly delicate, sweetly voiced but compelling rendition of the doleful Sonata F-sharp minor of Muzio Clementi, an Italian contemporary of Mozart and Beethoven.
Having established fearlessness as well as originality in the music of the classical era, Grynyuk moved on to more standard competition fare of Rachmaninoff and Chopin -- but with a distinctive take. Grynyuk floated, sang and then marched through a triptych of Preludes by Rachmaninoff, giving new energy to even the old familiar G minor.
And he found wonder and surprise along with a gorgeous, singerlike tone in Chopin's Nocturne in B (Opus 9, No. 3).
The gradual, masterfully planned intensification of the performance climaxed with a heart-stopping rendition of Liszt's famous Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, performed with Vladimir Horowitz's added frills and thunderbolts, aurally deduced by Grynyuk from Horowitz's recording.
Because only 30 of the 145 auditioners will make the cut, it's no sure thing that Grynyuk will come to Fort Worth in May; but he'll definitely make a strong impression if he does, eccentric appearance and all.
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Сводный отчёт о прослушиваниях в Утрехте:
The Cliburn 2005
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Starting today, we're globetrotting with the Cliburn jurors as they audition the most passionate young pianists in the world for a spot in Fort Worth's legendary competition. Our classical music critic Wayne Lee Gay will dispatch four diaries, offering you an intimate look at the competitors, the music that moves them and the nailbiting decisions that must be made to narrow the list to 30. So listen up. May 20 through June 5, the finalists will be pursuing their dreams at Bass Hall.
Notes from Utrecht
The diary: stormy music and weather
Saturday, Jan. 15:
No snow, no frozen canals. It's cool and blustery, with patches of sun and gusts of cool wind brushing the flat Dutch landscape as a party of eight travelers makes its way from the busy modernity of Amsterdam airport to the ancient market town of Utrecht.
Packed cozily with much luggage into a van, the five-member screening jury is accompanied by one spouse as well as Cliburn Foundation President Richard Rodzinski and foundation chairman Alann Sampson. Three had begun the journey in Fort Worth and three in New York, making a rough midwinter Atlantic crossing. One had flown up from Munich and another from Milan.
Ensconced on their arrival in the Grand Hotel Karel V, a restored Renaissance-era building near Utrecht's center, they relax and meditate on the monumental task ahead. Within the next six weeks, they will travel thousands of miles to listen to more than 140 of the world's finest young pianists -- and finish with the even harder task of choosing just 30 of them to compete in this year's Cliburn.
Sunday, Jan. 16
Though Utrecht is at the heart of modern Europe, it's a city that still shuts down on Sunday in a way that would remind Texas old-timers of the blue-law days. And although members of the jury enjoy comfortable accommodations, thanks to a good deal on off-season rooms, these distinguished musicians and classical-music-industry opinion leaders walk to the first auditions in the cold January damp over rough cobbled streets and sidewalks.
It is early evening, and a friendly crowd of 40 to 70 people will join them at the tall, octagonal, piano-friendly
Cliburnalia
Faces in the crowd
Henri Delbeau, a New York-based physician, accomplished pianist and finalist at the 2002 Cliburn amateur competition in Fort Worth, flew to the Netherlands to relax and listen to the auditions. And Wednesday, French filmmaker Andy Sommer arrived with a hand-held camera and began filming footage for the 2005 Cliburn documentary. recital hall housed in a modern complex in the center of the city. Busts of Debussy, Bartok and Utrecht-born composer Johan Wagenaar guard the lobby and set a tone of genial seriousness; a glossy European Steinway concert grand dominates the concert room itself. (Savvy listeners can see the keyboard and the hands mirrored in the stage's reflective ceiling.)
It's a two-Petrouchka night as the first auditioner, Chinese-born Wen-Yu Shen, 18, and the second, Bulgarian Evgeni Bozhanov, 20, both trot out Stravinsky's notorious finger-buster. In any other setting, away from such close comparison, Bozhanov's rendition, paired with elegant tidbits of Mozart and Chopin, would have come across as more than adequate; next to Shen's, whose barely post-adolescent appearance contradicts an extraordinarily mature performance, Bozhanov's version pales. Russian pianist Natalia Zagalskaia closes the day with a refined but oddly soulless program of music by Chopin, Saint-Saens and 20th-century Swiss composer Frank Martin.
The journey of millions of notes, which will end in Fort Worth in June, has begun.
Monday, Jan. 17
The weather's still unsettled for the first full day of auditions, as the jurors and a loyal crowd of piano buffs (as chatty and opinionated as their counterparts in Fort Worth) wander into the recital hall for the midday session of four performances.
Highly personal viewpoints abound among the auditioners -- as does the music of Liszt. In terms of numbers at least, one can't help noticing the substantial presence of Bulgarians, Chinese and the inevitable Russians studying abroad. But, best of all, there's a willingness and eagerness on the part of these young pianists to play elegantly and gently for at least part of their auditions, generally restricting the inevitable pyrotechnics to just one portion of a performance.
For instance, Bulgarian Viktor Valkov, 24, lingers with Haydn and Scarlatti before launching into Liszt; Taiwanese-born Chun-Chieh Yen, 21, opts for two of the more genteel items in the romantic repertoire -- Schumann's Carnaval and Rachmaninoff's Variations on a Theme of Corelli.
It was in the preliminary round at the 2001 Cliburn that American Andrew Russo broke a barrier of sorts by introducing music by American composer George Crumb, complete with reaching into the piano and strumming the strings. Today, Tashkent-born Eugene Mursky, 29, livens up the evening session with Crumb's Primeval Sounds, which calls not only for string-strumming but also for a small chain placed over a section of the strings, creating a fascinating constant buzz. What's more, Mursky made convincing music out of Crumb's complex instructions -- and also out of a hugely diverse program that packaged the Crumb with Haydn, Chopin and Liszt. If this early trend holds up, the inherently conservative Cliburn competition may become known as a nurturing ground for some new directions in piano music.
Tuesday, Jan. 18
Brief but thoroughly unpleasant downpours alternate with patches of blue sky outside. Inside Utrecht's Muziekcentrum, the first of a short lineup of three auditioners, opens with an elegant rendition by Russian Ilya Rashkovskiy of Liszt's piano transcription of Schubert's song Serenade. (Austrian Florian Krumpoeck, who would have brought the number up to four, postponed his audition with a cut finger; he'll play in Lugano, Switzerland, instead.)
The ghost of Franz Liszt continues to linger over the auditions; Japanese pianist Masataka Takada, 26, ripples through the Feux Follets Etude before diving into the high humor of the Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody; Chinese pianist Chenyin Li, 28, making her second go at the Cliburn competition (she also auditioned in 2001), presents a second, equally glittering rendition of the same showpiece later in the day. Beijing-born Li, chicly gowned in red and black to create an aura of an evening concert at midday, has flown over from London this morning and will fly back this afternoon. She admits in conversation afterward that she took a risk in learning Shostakovich's complex Prelude and Fugue in D-flat, which opened her audition, over the Christmas holidays. But the Russian composer's stormy, moody counterpoint matches the day and may well be the lucky calling card that finally brings Li to Fort Worth.
With an afternoon and evening off, the Cliburn Foundation's Sampson and Rodzinski offer to devise a day trip for the jurors. But with an eye to the stormy skies, the jurors opt to relax in their rooms and prepare for the busy day on Wednesday.
Wednesday, Jan. 19
Wednesday is the traditional market day in Utrecht and, on this cool, sunny day, the square next to the Muziekcentrum is abuzz with flea-market-style activity hours before the five jurors begin to make their way toward the small recital hall.
One cancellation has already affected the day's schedule; 2001 Cliburn finalist Wang Xiaohan sent word on Tuesday that he had undergone an emergency appendicitis. And yet another cancellation will eventually complicate the agenda.
Meanwhile, 27-year-old Julian Gorus, built like a basketball player, at about 6 foot 6, starts the day off big in more ways than one. Gorus is unafraid of broad give-and-take in his playing, beginning with the dreamy delicacy of Ravel's Jeux Deau (a musical description of water at play in a fountain) before moving on to the wide expanses of Liszt's Sonata in B minor; Gorus, fortunately, has the emotional presence to pull off his passionate approach. Next up, German pianist Sebastian Bernard manages to enliven an otherwise unexceptional program with the toccatalike Mouvement Rhythmique of 20th-century Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov.
Late in the afternoon, highly recommended Russian-born pianist Yevginy Sudbin calls in with the flu to further thin down the day's offerings; Rodzinski opines that Sudbin is one who may not reschedule at all. So, it's a skimpy evening of just two auditions awaiting the jury as they walk through the frozen evening, from dinner to the recital hall.
Ukrainian Lilian Akopova, in a boldly sparkling gown, looks like a powerful potential candidate for some future Cliburn as she presents a program of Schumann, Liszt (yes, more Liszt) and Bach-Busoni; she owns flawless technique but, at 21, has an as-yet-underdeveloped stage persona. She has plenty to communicate, but she can't quite reach across the footlights, yet -- like Olga Kern, back in 1997.
Twenty-five-year-old Czech Libor Novacek, however, can communicate, with a technical and tonal control impressive even in the midst of all these other amazing pianists. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, two movements from Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin and a grand finale of Liszt's Dante Sonata send the jury and the audience out with something to ponder on this increasingly cold night.
Thursday, Jan. 20
One after another, they file in, rip through a series of virtuoso showpieces -- with an occasional nod to more delicate or philosophical repertoire -- then disappear. The Soviet Union may be gone, but the series of young pianists that opens the final day of auditions in Utrecht proves that the old Soviet/Russian school of piano is still alive, at least for this generation.
Each ambitious young pianist arrives backed up by a list of competition wins and impressive teachers. Dark-haired, tuxedoed Amir Tebenikhin, 27, a Kazakhi born in Moscow, pulls off the neat trick of a 40-minute program that not only progresses chronologically (from Haydn to Chopin to Liszt to Bartok to Prokofiev) but roughly geographically as well, heading eastward from Germany through Poland and Hungary to Russia. Red-haired Ukrainian Mariya Kim, 23, who (shades of Van Cliburn) studied only with her mother until age 18, gambles all on a virtuoso repertoire of Liszt and Rachmaninoff; Estonian Marko Martin, 29, dresses and looks like a junior executive but gets to the core of Shostakovich's Prelude and Fugue in D minor, a tough, almost austere prophecy of hope from the waning days of Stalinism.
While all of this happens onstage, French filmmaker Andy Sommer, already hard at work on what will eventually be the documentary for the 2005 Cliburn competition, pops up everywhere with his hand-held camera, catching performances, auditioners entering and leaving the stage, audience reaction -- even this reporter sitting at a hotel lobby computer terminal, typing away on this report.
It's cloudy and still unseasonably warm outside, but the jurors will doubtless be pulling their winter coats tighter in a day or two, as they prepare to head eastward themselves. Starting Saturday, they'll be listening to the young Russians who chose to stay behind, as the international auditions continue at the Glazunov Concert Hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Inside the mind of a juror
Does a pianist have to be note-perfect to make the cut? After years of painstaking practice, can one flub in an audition spell disaster?
That's not in the rule book of Cliburn juror and legendary record producer Thomas Frost, even though he has spent his lifetime in an industry that demands perfection. And he has worked with titans of the music world -- Bernstein, Stern, Szell and Horowitz, to name a few.
"Wrong notes might bother other jurors more than they bother me," Frost said during a break in the Utrecht auditions. "How does a flubbed note or two stand in relation to the overall performance? If there's a slip in an otherwise fine performance, I tend toward ignoring it. Especially from someone who is giving all, who is obviously very good, who is playing from the heart."
Born in Vienna, Frost, now 79, immigrated with his family to the United States in 1938 at the time of the Nazi takeover of Austria. He learned violin and piano early, then attended Yale University, where he studied composition with Paul Hindemith. Frost then played violin in various orchestras. In the early 1950s, violist Lillian Fuchs advised the young Frost that the recording industry was about to boom; he took a clerical job at minimum wage at Decca, and the rest is history.
The truly great have valued his input, including Vladimir Horowitz. After decades of working with some of the great musicians of our time, here's a man who brings much depth to the jury -- an impeccable musical sensibility and a strong sense of what moves an audience.
The city: old meets new
The 21st century and the Middle Ages mingle comfortably in Utrecht, a city of 250,000 just 20 miles south of Amsterdam. Residents walk down a centuries-old brick sidewalk to enter McDonald's and KFC; a medieval church tower oversees the modern civic complex that houses concert halls, shops, offices and a train station.
It is the third consecutive time tryouts have been held in Utrecht, an obvious choice as an audition site because of its accessibility by rail, highway or air from across Northern Europe.
"We like to have as many people in the audience for the auditions as possible," says Richard Rodzinski, Cliburn Foundation president. "In a smaller city such as Utrecht, our auditions are more of an event than they would be in Paris or London, and we get a lot of attention."
Utrecht also is comfortable with the idea of importing rather than producing its own music. Although there are no major resident ensembles in the city, major European artists and orchestras crowd the concert agenda at the Muziekcentrum week after week.
About those hobbies
Noticing that Russian pianist Natalia Zagalskaia, 26, listed aerobics as a hobby on her application, we asked her how her healthy habit fit in with her life as a musician. "Well, I have the card for the gym, but I haven't actually done any aerobics yet." We know the feeling. Tashkent-born Eugene Mursky, 29, of Germany, was disarmingly honest. His listed hobbies are snooker, golf, pingpong -- and smoking cigarettes.
What's up with Liszt? So many auditioners are playing music by Franz Liszt -- about 60 of them, or around 40 percent -- that we had to ask why. Here are a few responses so far:
"He has a fascinating personality, and his music fits just right in the hands."
-- Sodi Braide, 29, Nigeria/United Kingdom
"There are lots of pieces by Liszt that show virtuosity without being too long to fit in as part of a 40-minute audition."
-- Chenyin Li, 28, China
"I play the music of Liszt because I love it. He was a great virtuoso, but he was also a great poet, and it's time we rediscovered that aspect.
-- Bertrand Chamayou, 23, France
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О прослушиваниях 22-го января в Петербурге:
Minsk native stands out from the rest in piano competition
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Liszt and Rachmaninoff continued to be the most frequently performed composers Saturday at the international screening auditions for the 2005 Van Cliburn Piano Competition, as the traveling jury for the auditions moved from the Netherlands to Russia.
But Minsk-born, Moscow-trained Andrew Shibko, 29, one of seven ambitious young pianists who auditioned Saturday at St. Petersburg's Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, took a different turn. He focused on the brainy side of romanticism as represented by Schubert's Sonata in A minor (D. 784) and Brahms' Fantasies, Opus 116.
The Schubert sonata stretches lyrical, songlike ideas over a large, three-movement structure and demands breadth of vision and delicacy. Shibko demonstrated both, presenting an impressive range of color on a piano that tended to be clangy for other auditioners. And, in the seven Fantasies of Brahms' Opus 116, he commanded the complex textures and the underlying emotionalism of these autumnal sketches.
In the process, Shibko displayed an absolute technical control, as surely as if he had plowed through any of the more standard piano showpieces. This listener certainly hopes that we hear from Shibko again in Fort Worth at the main competition in May.
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О прослушиваниях 23-го января в Петербурге:
A touch of world-class competition from Russia's great conservatories
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Forget the puny rivalries of American colleges and music departments: Two of the greatest music conservatories in the world went head-to-head Sunday on the second day of the St. Petersburg screening auditions for the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth.
The ornately decorated Glazunov Hall of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory provided the field of battle as three potential stars from the St. Petersburg Conservatory played in the afternoon session, followed by three from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the evening session.
Although it's not difficult to imagine any of these six amazing young musicians taking a medal in the final round of the Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth in June, 26-year-old Valentina Igoshina, a student of medalist producing Sergei Dorensky of the Moscow Conservatory, created the greatest impression of the day in an early evening program that opened with Beethoven's Sonata in E-flat, Opus 27, No. 1.
While the snow swirled outside, Igoshina warmed up the auditorium with a vision of the sonata that was majestically solid but underpinned with a constant sense of a drama unfolding. Moving on to the more passionate literature of the romantic era, she displayed a beautiful, mellow tone (on an unfortunately out-of-tune piano) to launch Chopin's Ballade in F Minor, imbuing this standard favorite with an aura of narration, like a tale told by fireside. Her moppish brown hair flying, she moved on to the unadulterated showmanship of Liszt's glitzy Rapsodie Espagnole, once again proving her dramatic gifts by finding a solid structure in this showpiece and producing a wonderfully rich quality of tone while finding constant moments of suspense and surprise.
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Тоже о прослушиваниях 23-го января в Петербурге:
A touch of world-class competition from Russia's great conservatories
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Forget the puny rivalries of American colleges and music departments: Two of the greatest music conservatories in the world went head-to-head Sunday on the second day of the St. Petersburg screening auditions for the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth.
The ornately decorated Glazunov Hall of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory provided the field of battle as three potential stars from the St. Petersburg Conservatory played in the afternoon session, followed by three from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the evening session.
Although it's not difficult to imagine any of these six amazing young musicians taking a medal in the final round of the Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth in June, 26-year-old Valentina Igoshina, a student of medalist producing Sergei Dorensky of the Moscow Conservatory, created the greatest impression of the day in an early evening program that opened with Beethoven's Sonata in E-flat, Opus 27, No. 1.
While the snow swirled outside, Igoshina warmed up the auditorium with a vision of the sonata that was majestically solid but underpinned with a constant sense of a drama unfolding. Moving on to the more passionate literature of the romantic era, she displayed a beautiful, mellow tone (on an unfortunately out-of-tune piano) to launch Chopin's Ballade in F Minor, imbuing this standard favorite with an aura of narration, like a tale told by fireside. Her moppish brown hair flying, she moved on to the unadulterated showmanship of Liszt's glitzy Rapsodie Espagnole, once again proving her dramatic gifts by finding a solid structure in this showpiece and producing a wonderfully rich quality of tone while finding constant moments of suspense and surprise.
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О прослушиваниях 24-го января в Петербурге:
Pupil garners most spirited applause
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Experienced competition-goers have learned to sit up and listen when a student of Moscow Conservatory professor Lev Naumov walks onstage.
And with good reason, as Gorky-born Evgeny Brakhman, 24, proved when he sat down to play at Glazunov Concert Hall on Monday afternoon in the third day of the Russian auditions for Fort Worth's Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Unassuming but clearly relaxed and confident as he faced the audience in the venerable auditorium, Brakhman opened his 40-minute program with a solid, proclamatory delivery of Mozart's quasi-improvisational Fantasia in C minor.
Having convincingly presented a boldly muscular viewpoint in the classical era, he filled out his remaining time by presenting three contrasting aspects of romantic music. He dashed through the rolling arpeggios of Chopin's Etude in C, then drew back into thoughtful lyricism for Rachmaninoff's Prelude in F-sharp minor.
And he passed the biggest test of the program -- Rachmaninoff's monstrous Sonata No. 2 -- opening with fire and flash before tugging the listener into a lovingly whispered second theme. And he shaped the sprawling, 22-minute-long sonata into a grandly compelling whole. An audience of fellow auditioners and obvious connoisseurs responded with the loudest, most enthusiastic applause of the day.
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О прослушиваниях 25-го января в Петербурге:
Final performance almost like song recital
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - It was almost like being at a song recital when Rem Urasin, 28, born in Kazan but studying in Moscow with renowned Moscow Conservatory professor Lev Naumov, presented the final performance of the Russian auditions for the 2005 Cliburn Competition.
With sharp, dark Tatar features and a serious demeanor, Urasin opened with an energetic rendition of Mozart's Sonata in D (K. 576).
Then the pianistic "singing" began, as he delivered four of Liszt's piano solo arrangements of songs of Schubert. The famous, melodramatic Die Erlkonig (sic! - Сергей), which describes a flight through the night in which a father and child are pursued by an evil spirit, was appropriately multifaceted. The more gentle Serenade showed off a beautiful cantabile tone, particularly in the arresting segment where the melody echoes itself.
Urasin closed his program and the St. Petersburg auditions with a sometimes dry but ultimately demonic rendition of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1, summing up the virtuosity that dominated the four days in the old Russian capital.
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Сводный отчёт о прослушиваниях в Петербурге:
The Cliburn 2005
In a city of czars, palaces and art treasures, the Amazing Race continues
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
We're globetrotting with the Cliburn jurors as they audition the most passionate young pianists in the world for a spot in Fort Worth's legendary competition. Our classical music critic Wayne Lee Gay dispatches his second of four diaries, offering an intimate look at the competitors, the music that moves them and the nailbiting decisions that must be made to narrow the list to 30. So listen up. May 20 through June 5, the finalists will be pursuing their dreams at Bass Hall.
Notes from St. Petersburg
The diary: Russian passions
Saturday, Jan. 22
In the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, a lavishly decorated, 19th-century building restored to its original grandeur in the post-Soviet era, Alexander Glazunov Hall provides a handsome if overheated setting for the St. Petersburg auditions (every interior in Russia seems overheated). Apollo floats above the room on a ceiling fresco, while a portrait of Glazunov, the bearded and stern Russian composer, stares across the stage.
Seven pianists, one from Israel and the rest from Russia or former Soviet republics, perform under the watchful eye of Glazunov and the jury during this long day. Three video-camera operators -- including Cliburn documentary filmmaker Andy Sommer and two local TV people -- prowl the stage quietly during the afternoon performances.
Marina Kolomiytseva, a Russian, is the first standout of the day, convincingly passionate in Beethoven's Sonata No. 18 and downright thrilling in a well-handled presentation of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1; another product of the Moscow Conservatory, 30-year-old Andrew Shibko, is impressive as a mature, commanding artist in an unlikely program of Schubert and Brahms.
Stanislav Khristenko, 20, a student of 2001 Cliburn co-silver medalist Maxim Philippov, trudges grimly onstage and makes an equally awkward exit, but he glows with artistry and personality once he gets his hands on the keys for his program of Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and J.S. Bach.
Sunday, Jan. 23
With no auditions until 2 p.m., the jurors and their entourage (including me) begin the day by heading in a van, through blowing snow, to the Hermitage, the complex of imperial palaces that now serves as a public museum, housing one of the greatest art collections in the world.
The throne rooms intimidate -- as the designers surely intended -- and the sheer number of great artworks is amazing. Yet, in the midst of dozens of works by Picasso, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci and others, a single sculpture by Michelangelo of a crouching boy radiates energy and heat that I can almost feel as I stand beside it.
Later, in a crowded roomful of clocks and jewels by Faberge, the favorite designer of the imperial family in its final decades, I feel both the whimsicality and the aura of impending disaster that surrounds these opulent toys and mementos of one of history's most powerful and tragic dynasties.
The jurors return to the conservatory early in the afternoon for the ongoing parade of young Russians who consistently impress, in the Russian tradition, with volume and speed -- and who occasionally manage to present subtlety and sensitivity as well. The small but intensely interested audience gives the warmest reception to hometown performers from the St. Petersburg Conservatory; the elegantly gowned Anna Sheludko draws the most enthusiastic audience response of the afternoon for her program of Ravel and Rachmaninoff. Friends crowd around her afterward, and she is congratulated by her first piano teacher, who is also her mother.
Between the day's two sessions, Cliburn Chairman Alann Sampson hosts a dinner for the jurors and guests at a nearby Russian-style restaurant to celebrate Cliburn President Richard Rodzinski's 60th birthday. Moscow-based pianist Natalia Trull, renowned mezzo-soprano Elena Obraztsova (accompanied by her poodle, Carmen) and former Tchaikovsky Competition Director Oleg Skorodumov join the intimate party with numerous toasts, presentations of gifts both funny and serious, a bouquet of roses and two hearty rounds of Happy Birthday (led by one of the greatest singers of the age). Afterward, they walk back through the snow to the conservatory for another round of thunderous Russian pianism.
Monday, Jan. 24
Maybe it's the rare winter sunshine gleaming on the snow-brushed palaces and churches that dominate this old imperial capital that draws the biggest audience of the Russian auditions. Two hundred or so music lovers -- including many conservatory students -- in the Glazunov Auditorium are a genial, intent crowd as the series of young Russian players continues.
Two Cliburn competitors from 2001 -- Maxim Manioukov, 25, and Sergey Koudriakov, 27, are back to try again. A fellow student from the Moscow Conservatory, Evgeny Brakhman, 24, is here with them, trading jokes and cigarettes between auditions.
Manioukov and Koudriakov are the veterans, but it's Brakhman who wins the loudest applause, looking and sounding -- with a broad, strongly delivered program of Mozart, Chopin and Rachmaninoff -- like the day's best candidate to move on to the next phase in Fort Worth in May.
Tuesday, Jan. 25
The St. Petersburg winter finally arrives, with a light snowfall and a cold wind as the jurors, with me still tagging along, sneak in some final hours of sightseeing. The contradictions of history abound: A statue of Lenin guards an ugly, Stalin-style office complex as our touring van approaches a forested suburb that contains a retreat favored by the last czars. It's a reminder of a vanished lifestyle enjoyed by a privileged few.
A well-spiced, hearty lunch at a Georgian restaurant follows, after which we visit the massive church where the czars are buried, including the recently re-interred Nicholas II and his family.
A brief meeting -- including traditional Russian toasts -- with St. Petersburg Conservatory rector Alexander Tchaikovsky follows and provides a transition from the world of history and art back to the world of music in the early evening. Two young Muscovite pianists perform, the crowd chatters as busily as Fort Worth music lovers at a concert, and the jury prepares to head west again to Lugano, Switzerland, where auditions resume on Friday.
Smokin' at the Cliburn
Russians Maxim Manioukov, 25, and Sergey Koudriakov, 27, made a splash at the 2001 Cliburn when they appeared in a memorable Star-Telegram photo, smoking outside Bass Performance Hall. Both of the piano bad boys are back this year, and they're all grown up.
Manioukov, left, lean, intense and ponytailed, found unexpected humor and energy in Beethoven's rarely played Variations on a Theme of Salieri before launching into a huge, warm version of Ravel's murderously difficult Gaspard de la Nuit. But the first thing he mentioned when we grabbed him backstage was that he has become a father. "I lost my youthfulness, but gained maturity," Manioukov said. "Parenthood helped me develop as a person."
His friend Koudriakov, right, who rated a special jury award in 2001 in Fort Worth, also has become a father -- besides winning the Geneva Competition and becoming a teaching assistant at the Moscow Conservatory.
"I'm completely busy," he says, with parenthood, practicing, teaching and a busier performance schedule after his Geneva win.
But neither of the guys has kicked the smoking habit.
Cliburnalia
Applause-o-meter
We've occasionally complained that Fort Worth crowds give a standing ovation to every performer who manages to get through a concert. Things are very different at these European auditions. Particularly in St. Petersburg, where Cliburn competitors were met with the deafening sound of silence.
There was no applause between works. Ever.
Performers hardly seemed to mind, though, taking their time to prepare emotionally for the next piece. A few favorite Russian pianists drew some response at the end of their recitals -- but even then it was only a short period of rhythmic clapping. Talk about tough crowds.
Gettin' in tune
Three concert grands sit on the stage of Glazunov Concert Hall at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but only one has been used for the auditions. Which leads us to wonder how bad the other two must be. The instrument was miserably out of tune during the first two days of auditions. Jurors complained -- and Cliburn Prez. Richard Rodzinski said it was beginning to sound "like a honky-tonk piano."
Rodzinski talked to the tuner, who agreed to try harder on Monday and Tuesday. But the results were mixed at best.
None of the auditioners griped, however. The only sound they could hear was the jangling of their nerves.
The city: a legacy of music
Tchaikovsky lived, worked and died here. Prokofiev and Shostakovich studied at the very music conservatory that's home to these 2005 Cliburn auditions. In St. Petersburg, a graceful city of palaces, canals, embassies and churches, ghosts of classical music are everywhere.
St. Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great and designed to be an elegant European capital that could rival the likes of Venice and Vienna. But the 20th century brought hard times: In the wake of the communist revolution, the Russian imperial city was stripped of its status and its name, becoming Leningrad, one of many regional capitals in a colorless dictatorship.
St. Petersburg will never again be an imperial capital, but now, again bearing its traditional name, it has re-emerged as the most civilized and interesting city in Russia. The fabulous palaces are public museums, drawing visitors from around the world to the priceless art treasures collected by the old imperial aristocracy. Though war and communism left their mark on St. Petersburg, the grandeur and lively beauty remain.
After holding auditions in Moscow in 1997 and 2001, the Cliburn Foundation has at last moved them to the city that gave the world some of history's greatest music and musicians.
-- Wayne Lee Gay
The man behind the film
French filmmaker Andy Sommer's challenge is to produce a documentary on the 2005 competition that looks completely different from the previous six Cliburn documentaries.
But he and Cliburn Foundation President Richard Rodzinski both know that won't be easy.
"The structure of the competition is so strong, it will be hard to break out and find a different way of presenting the story," Sommer explains.
Sommer, 46, has been busy at these auditions, collecting an extensive amount of material with a lightweight, state-of-the-art Sony digital camera. The model isn't yet available for sale, but Sony provided one especially for this project. Two other cameramen will join Sommer in Fort Worth at the main competition; meanwhile, he'll be trying out ideas and collecting prodigious amounts of material at all the auditions.
Sommer was born in Hamburg, Germany, and graduated from a Paris film school. He built his career by making music-focused documentaries for French television (in France, TV stations are required to show a certain amount of cultural programming -- an idea well worth pondering in the United States).
Sommer has worked with several renowned conductors, including Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta and Lorin Maazel, to explore interpretations of great composers, as in In Search of Beethoven and In Search of Schubert. In the process, he learned new ways to present classical music that he hopes to apply to his documentary of the 2005 Cliburn.
And, besides seeing him on the job, camera in hand, Fort Worth music lovers can catch up with his past work when these and other films are shown at "Sommerfest, " a free film festival May 30-June 4 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, during breaks in the piano competition
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Сводный отчёт о прослушиваниях в Лугано, Швейцария:
The Cliburn 2005
In a city of vistas and well-heeled tourists, the Amazing Race continues
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
We're globetrotting with the Cliburn jurors as they audition the most passionate young pianists in the world for a spot in Fort Worth's legendary competition. Our classical music critic Wayne Lee Gay dispatches his third of four diaries, offering an intimate look at the competitors, the music that moves them and the nailbiting decisions that must be made to narrow the list to 30. So listen up. May 20 through June 5, the finalists will be pursuing their dreams at Bass Hall.
Notes from Lugano
The diary: Embracing liberation
Thursday, Jan. 27
On a rare day with neither travel nor auditions, we have a chance to drink in the beauty of Lake Lugano and the city's snowcapped mountains -- a welcome contrast to the crowded, antique opulence of St. Petersburg.
The commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz dominates broadcast news in Europe; although the world has a long way to go, I can't help being struck by the friendliness of this group of music professionals who 60 years ago were in some cases on different sides in the bitter struggle of that era. In January 1945, Cliburn juror Jurgen Meyer-Josten was a 10-year-old who, after several years of living in rural eastern Germany, had returned to Berlin to flee the advancing Soviet army. Marcello Abbado was a student at the Milan Conservatory, living with his parents, who were illegally harboring two Jewish children in their home in German-occupied northern Italy.
On the other side of the lines, Thomas Frost, who had fled Vienna in 1938 with his family shortly after Hitler's takeover of Austria, was a first-year college student in mechanical engineering at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute; John Giordano was a grade-schooler in Erie, Pa.
Yoheved Kaplinsky wasn't born yet, but her father had already been liberated from his hiding place in Poland while her mother and an older brother were in Palestine as refugees; a sister had perished in the Holocaust. Having been separated at the beginning of the war, Kaplinsky's mother and father each assumed that the other was dead. They would be reunited the following summer in Palestine, where Kaplinsky was born several years later.
Thus, 60 years after that time of terror and hope, two Americans, an Israeli-born American, a German and an Italian travel together across a once-ruined landscape seeking great pianists among the grandchildren of the survivors of World War II.
Friday, Jan. 28
Jurors stroll through the upscale shopping district before packing into cars and heading for the high-tech, wood-paneled radio studio where they listen to seven pianists representing Poland, Italy, Britain, Spain and Germany.
The music of Liszt and Rachmaninoff, which has so far dominated audition repertoires, turns up a little less frequently in the programs of these southern and western Europeans; now, we're hearing Messiaen, Villa-Lobos and Ginastera. And although there is still plenty of brilliance among these youngsters, there are many more attempts to impress the jury with subtlety and style than with the flash and noise that reigned in St. Petersburg.
Saturday, Jan. 29
Polish-born, Italian-based pianist Marlena Maciejkowicz calls Cliburn president Richard Rodzinski just minutes before her audition. She's in her car, lost in in the picturesque, winding streets of Lugano. And she's frantic. He manages to calm her via cellphone and direct her in.
She arrives and walks onstage glowing, looking sophisticatedly Slavic in deep purple as she dives into music of Handel, Chopin and Prokofiev.
This leads off a generally pleasant, sometimes amazing afternoon of monuments of the piano literature. Long-haired Spaniard Horacio Lavandera, a 20-year-old freshly emerging from teen prodigyhood, follows Maciejkowicz with Chopin's Sonata No. 2 and Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7. Lavandera's interesting but immature artistry inspires hope that even if he doesn't make the cut this time around, he will try again in four years. Italian Davide Cabassi, 28, proves that sometimes with age comes greater artistry. His impressive, delicately mature performance of works of Debussy, Stravinsky and J.S. Bach seems likely to bring him to Texas in May.
Italian Alessandro Roselletti, 29, closed what was a short day (due to some cancellations) with flourishes of Liszt, Chopin and Scriabin.
Sunday, Jan. 30
With sun beaming on the mountains and lake, Sunday begins as the most glorious day, weatherwise, of the European auditions.
It's also one of the busiest, with seven auditioners crossing the stage. Most have at least one strength and several weaknesses. French pianist Muriel Berard delivers a delicate Bach; her style becomes anemic when she applies the same sensibilities to late Beethoven in the Sonata, Opus 110. British pianist Danny Driver organizes Chopin's Ballade in A-flat and Scriabin's Second Sonata neatly but turns the slow movement of a Haydn Sonata into an overly detailed ordeal.
Davide Franceschetti, a 2001 semifinalist hoping to return, fascinates in Schoenberg's biting Six Little Pieces, Op. 19, but makes so many controversial choices in Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition that he may frighten this jury off. Strong Haydn and Prokofiev contrast with oddly detached Rachmaninoff from Chinese pianist Jie Zheng, 23, dressed in a midnight-blue gown and somewhat incongruous schoolgirl eyeglasses.
The brilliant finale from Italian Alberto Nosé makes the day totally worthwhile, as he explores a heavily romantic program of Chopin, Granados and Ravel; but it's after 11 p.m., and at least part of the entourage expects to leave the hotel at 5 a.m. Monday to catch overseas flights. With Europe behind them, they have a little over a week to rest (and catch their breath) before the seven long days of auditions in New York, beginning Feb. 10 at Rockefeller University.
The hair apparent?
In 2001, 24-year-old Davide Franceschetti swept into the hearts of Cliburn fans with his elegant Italian pianism and his unforgettable flowing locks. He reached the semifinals, earning a jury discretionary award and a prize for chamber music. Now 28, still single and still Hollywood handsome, Franceschetti auditioned to return to Fort Worth in Lugano on Sunday.
His career is still modest by star standards. He estimates performing 15 to 20 professional concerts a year, so he's hoping a second shot at the Cliburn would provide greater exposure in America.
"The musical life is difficult," he says, just out of concert attire and into jeans. "The Cliburn is an opportunity to show what I can do."
Which is why his somewhat risky audition repertoire of Schoenberg's Six Little Pieces from Op. 19 (thorny and dissonant) and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (showy but overworked by any standards) was a bit surprising.
"I know it's strange to start with the Schoenberg," he admits. "I changed my program every day for a while. But I feel strongly about those pieces, and want to play them."
In recent years, the jury discretionary award has proven to be a step toward stardom. Olga Kern won one in 1997, then won gold in 2001. Franceschetti, no doubt, is hoping that history will repeat itself in 2005.
A symphony of mountains and music
European millionaires vacation and hold corporate meetings in this lakeside Swiss resort city of 25,000; the market area, which has the look of a traditional European village, is lined with shops selling Gucci, Armani, Versace and Louis Vuitton. The prices in these shops -- and the restaurants and hotels -- are as high as the beautiful snow-capped mountains visible from all over Lugano.
Musically, Switzerland has provided a vacation stopover for many great composers, including Wagner, Brahms and Mahler. The mountain-bound, fiercely independent country boasts Ernest Bloch, Frank Martin and Arthur Honneger as its greatest composers -- they're even pictured on the country's paper currency.
Since the last Cliburn auditions here in 2001, Argentine pianist Martha Argerich has founded an annual summer festival in the city, gathering the elite of the musical world for two weeks of intimate concerts every June. Milan's principal airport is only an hour away by car; the pleasant atmosphere of the city, the fine auditorium and cooperative administration at the Italian Swiss Radio, which serves the Italian-speaking corner of Switzerland, have made it a logical audition center for two consecutive Cliburn competitions.
And the food, combining elements of northern Italian and Swiss cuisine, doesn't hurt Lugano's popularity with Cliburn jurors and their entourage.
-- Wayne Lee Gay
Cliburnalia
A little bit country
Italian Roberto Plano, 26, who performed music by Brahms, Villa-Lobos and Ginastera in his audition Friday in Lugano, should feel right at home in North Texas if he makes the cut -- and not just because his last name is Plano. He is a fan of country music and of line dancing. His brother, who learned to love country music in Dublin, Ireland -- of all places -- introduced Plano to the music of Garth Brooks, Brooks & Dunn, Clint Black and George Strait several years ago.
"He also started teaching line dance in a dance school close to Milan," Plano says in an e-mail. "I'm pretty sure that he was the first to introduce this kind of dance in Italy."
Plano, who won first prize in the Cleveland Competition in 2001, says he always tries to catch CMT when he travels in the United States.
Competitors come and go
• Chinese pianist Jin Ju, who already has a busy career in Europe, withdrew from the auditions on the advice of her manager, who feared that a poor showing in the Cliburn might shoot down her rising star. Smelling a potential champion, Cliburn president Richard Rodzinski urged her to reconsider. Then, realizing that her busy European schedule would cause problems if she emerged with a medal in Fort Worth, he bade her a genial farewell.
• Sa Chen, another promising Chinese pianist, was turned away from entry to Switzerland at the Swiss-Italian border because of inadequate papers. She returned to Hanover, Germany, flew back to Lugano and was turned away a second time. She'll send a taped audition to Fort Worth for consideration.
• Austrian Florian Krumpoeck, who postponed his scheduled audition in Utrecht after cutting his finger, arrived in Lugano on Sunday to perform, good-naturedly lamenting only three hours of sleep after a concert in Vienna on Saturday.
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О прослушиваниях 12-го февраля в Нью-Йорке:
Young pianist shows brilliance
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
NEW YORK - Wearing a glittering jacket almost as flashy as parts of her program, 19-year-old pianist Ang Li announced herself as a potential figure of huge significance on the international concert stage Saturday at Rockefeller University in her audition for the 2005 Cliburn Competition.
Ang's background is impressively international: Born in Beijing, she is now a Canadian citizen living in New York. And her background touches on two major power bases in the musical community in the United States, with five years of study at Curtis followed by entry into the master's program at The Juilliard School last fall.
Her impressive musical pedigree was evident from the first notes of Haydn's Sonata No. 50 in C. She didn't so much play as proclaim the opening triad, which most pianists treat as light and humorous. It was the generous, muscular sort of playing that characterizes a great artist.
Having demonstrated a sturdy, convincing approach to the classical era, Li followed up with fleet delicacy, finesse of tone and extraordinary imagination in a set of three pictorial Preludes of Debussy ("Mists," "The Eccentric General Lavine" and "Fireworks"). She then turned to Canadian composer Alexina Louie's Memories of an Ancient Garden -- not just an exercise in Canadian nationalism for Li, but a fine example of her insight and competence with the new piano music, including sonorous clusters and reaching into the piano to strum the strings. Li was clearly as at home with the new piano techniques as with the traditional demands of Haydn and Debussy.
As proof that she can also be a grand virtuoso of the old school, Ang closed with the shameless showiness of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12, delivered with absolute brilliance and confidence. Her application indicates a huge repertoire already under control: Expect to hear more from this young genius in years ahead -- and, hopefully, at the Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth in May.
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То же о прослушиваниях 13-го февраля:
22-year-old makes strong case with risky program
NEW YORK - An audition program devoting four minutes to a single Scarlatti sonata and 35 minutes to Brahms' Sonata No. 3 is, by any standard, risky. The delicacies of Scarlatti, conceived for the small 18th-century Spanish harpsichord, can sometimes translate awkwardly to the modern concert grand piano. And the broad, ambitious structures of Brahms' youthful Sonata No. 3 are the territory of the mature artist -- not a 20-something virtuoso angling for admission to the Cliburn Competition.
But Taiwanese-born Brian Hsu, 22, tall and, in a dark suit, looking like a business-school graduate interviewing for his first job, used that repertoire to make a strong case for acceptance to the 2005 Cliburn Competition on Sunday afternoon at Caspery Auditorium on the campus of Rockefeller University.
It probably didn't help his nerves that his audition started an hour ahead of schedule: His compatriot, Hsian Tu, who had been scheduled to play at 1 p.m., didn't show up. When it became obvious that Tu wasn't going to appear, Hsu was present and ready to go.
His Scarlatti was brief and bold, highlighted by gloriously rippling scales in the midst of stirring martial momentum. In the Brahms, he demonstrated a breadth of expression and technical ability that more than made up for the absence of modern or classical-era repertoire on his program. The second movement, an Andante molto with a heart-rending melody, was particularly captivating. In spite of the intrusion of a siren during a quiet passage in the fourth movement, Hsu, who has studied with 1981 Cliburn finalist Da Ming Zhu in Taipei and who works with Yoheved Kaplinsky at the Juilliard School of Music, ended the afternoon session looking like a strong contender to advance to the main competition in Fort Worth in May.
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Прослушивания 14-го февраля в Нью-Йорке:
Grace under pressure
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
NEW YORK - One of the most significant tasks facing an auditioner for the Cliburn competition is how to fill 40 minutes while at the same time showing oneself to best advantage and keeping the jury (and audience) interested -- all without exposing any major weakness.
California-born Grace Fong, 25, a student of Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music, showed how to do all that with an exemplary program for her audition Monday afternoon at Caspary Auditorium on the Rockefeller University campus.
Fong's attractive stage presence certainly didn't hurt her cause with the attentive audience of connoisseurs; she provided a splash of unexpected glamour in the dreary February afternoon as she calmly stepped onstage in a simple black gown slightly dramatized with ribbons.
But the program selection in itself was impressively artful and effective. Three short but note-thick pieces by Rachmaninoff began with the dark Moment Musical in E minor, followed by a Prelude in a brighter A-flat major (Opus 23, No.8) and an even brighter Prelude in B-flat major (Opus 23, No. 2). This was no random key sequence; the move from minor to major and then up one full step was clearly designed to keep the audience involved.
Her skills with romantic repertoire well-established at this point, Fong moved into the darker D minor of Handel's Suite No. 3, presenting fine insights into the baroque, including a delightful light touch on the pedal, an occasional deliberate imitation of the light-volumed clavichord and frequent evocation of the lyrical arias of the same composer's beloved oratorio Messiah.
Having touched down convincingly in the romantic and baroque, she moved into the 20th century with British composer Kenneth Leighton's dramatically dissonant Studies for Piano, Opus 56, providing a quick, showy finale for her audition.
Of course, a carefully plotted repertoire counts for nothing if it's not well-played; Fong, fortunately, has the fingers and the imagination to present every phrase compellingly.
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Прослушивания 15-го февраля в Нью-Йорке:
18-year-old Juilliard student electrifies audience
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
NEW YORK - You didn't need a ticket to the opera in New York on Tuesday night. Pianist Joyce Yang, 18, a native of South Korea studying at the Juilliard School, put on an opera without words in her audition for the 2005 Cliburn Competition.
If anything, Yang at first looked almost severe in demeanor as she first stepped onto the stage at Caspary Auditorium at Rockefeller University. But as she started to play J.S. Bach's "Overture in the French Style" (in spite of its title, actually a rather complex multi-movement suite of dances), it became obvious that she possesses, despite her youth, not only an intense involvement in her music but a rare imagination and ability to communicate.
Bach's grandeur, humor and lyricism flowed naturally from her fingers, as did the whimsical brilliance of Rachmaninoff's Etude in E-flat minor, Opus 33, No. 6.
But the real tour de force came with Liszt's Reminiscences de Don Juan, an excruciatingly difficult piano fantasy based on themes from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. With the sense of timing of a great actress, matched by an ability to toss off all of Liszt's considerable technical demands, Yang held the audience on edge and brought it to its feet cheering.
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О прослушиваниях 17-го февраля:
Fine Arts
Cliburn hopefuls provide lots of great classical piano -- for free
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Classical Music Critic
The countdown to the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition continues: Having heard well over 100 ambitious young pianists audition in Europe and New York, the screening jury finally arrives in Fort Worth this week, where they'll hear the final 27.
For old-timers, this phase resembles the Cliburn the way it used to be. The Fort Worth auditions are held in the almost casual setting of Ed Landreth Auditorium, and admission is free. The leadership of the Cliburn wants these auditions to be essentially public performances.
For the connoisseur, the 18 hours of music-making packed into just four days can be an education in the art of the piano. For the novice who wants to know what the fuss is about, it's a great cost-free, low-pressure introduction to classical piano.
Given the quality of this year's field, be assured that many very interesting pianists -- and possibly one of the superstars of the new century -- will play.
Tips for enjoying the Cliburn auditions
Go anytime You don't need a reservation, plenty of seats are usually available, and admission is free. Though you won't be admitted in the middle of an audition, there's a break every 40 minutes, with longer intermissions scattered throughout the sessions.
Left or right If you've never watched a pianist, join the mob on the front lefthand side of the auditorium, where you can see the pianist's hands clearly and get a good sense of the sheer athletic skill that goes into playing classical piano music. But if you're a seasoned fan, you already know that the best sound is on the right side of the auditorium toward the back.
When to clap Audiences at the auditions in Utrecht, Netherlands, and St. Petersburg, Russia, tended to wait till the end of an entire recital to applaud, while those in Lugano, Switzerland, responded with polite applause between each piece played. Expect Fort Worth's warm audiences to applaud enthusiastically at the end of each work -- but please don't upset the auditioner's concentration by clapping between the movements of multimovement work.
The usual suspects Expect to hear plenty of Rachmaninoff and Liszt if you stay long: Those are clearly the favorite choice of auditioners in 2005. Ukrainian-born Dmitri Levkovich will devote his entire audition at 3 p.m. Tuesday to a performance of Rachmaninoff's 13 Preludes, Opus 32. 2001 Cliburn finalist Alexey Koltakov bids for a return to the Cliburn with an all-Liszt program at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
Going deeper If you want to hear unusual repertoire, show up at 4 p.m. Tuesday, when Ukrainian pianist Yuri Blinov will perform his own arrangement of Tchaikovsky's orchestral piece Francesca da Rimini. Or catch Kazakhstan native Sergei Kuznetsoff in the Sonata No. 3 by Nikolai Miaskovsky at 4 p.m. Monday. Hong Kong-born David Fung will present Henri Dutilleux's Chorale et Variations during his audition at 3 p.m. Saturday.
Superwoman If you admire overachievers, don't miss American Jade Simmons, who performs at 2 p.m. Saturday. A graduate of Rice University and first runner-up in the 1999 Miss America Pageant, Simmons hopes to add the Cliburn competition to her already amazing list of accomplishments.
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Сводный отчёт о прослушиваниях в Нью-Йорке:
Notes from New York
The diary: Big Apple stop pits Cliburn vs. Christo
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Thursday, Feb. 10
The city is brimming with anticipation, but, alas, it's not for the American phase of the Cliburn auditions. Christo, the eccentric, enigmatic artist, has New Yorkers wrapped around his finger as they wait for the unfurling of The Gates, his 23-mile, drenched-in-orange public art project that will spread out across Central Park.
Cliburn auditioners would have to settle for second billing. But this is New York, and some of the female auditioners make a statement -- a fashion statement -- with elegant dresses favoring daring necklines and sparkling sequins. Their style adds a touch of flash to the dreary New York winter.
The first day of auditions at Rockefeller University's Caspary Auditorium brings another welcome surprise: a day without Liszt. Jurors have grown weary of the 19th-century virtuoso, a favorite among the competitors. Instead, works by contemporary American composers George Crumb and Frederic Rzewski, 19th-century British composer Samuel Sebastian Wesley and contemporary Armenian composer Aram Babajanian add interest and texture to the long first day.
Friday, Feb. 11
With only an evening session, I jump at the chance to visit the new Museum of Modern Art, just a few blocks west of our Hotel Elysee. All that music won't go away, though: With my ears soaked in piano music from the Cliburn auditions, a glimpse of Picasso brings Stravinsky to mind, and Mondrian's geometry evokes Schoenberg; the monumental stretch of Monet's Water Lilies paintings is Debussy visualized.
Later that night, in Caspary Auditorium, we listen as 2001 competitor Andrew Russo, who caused a sensation four years ago in Fort Worth by reaching inside the piano during a performance of Crumb, plays it a little safer this time with Liszt, Bartok and Debussy.
Saturday, Feb. 12
The competition is really heating up, with a string of high-quality competitors filling the schedule. Nineteen-year-old Chinese-Canadian Ang Li impressively spans three centuries with a program that includes music by contemporary Canadian Alexina Louie. But the day doesn't truly begin until after 10 p.m., when 23-year-old Washington state native Stephen Beus steps onstage, looking very much like a young Van Cliburn. These jurors have heard Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody so many times that they're blue in the face, but Beus brings them to the edges of their seats. His powerful renditions of Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and Barber's Sonata create the sunshine and passion that comes only from a potential medalist.
Sunday, Feb. 13
The 1 p.m. auditioner, Hsiang Tu, is a no-show. Jurors are perturbed, particularly the one who was a reference for Tu on his application. Audience members, unsure what to do, wander out to enjoy a perfect New York day. Juilliard student Brian Hsu amiably agrees to play an hour before his scheduled time.
Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Haydn and Ravel all fall into place with predictability in the evening session; only Chinese pianist Chuan Qin breaks the monotony with Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti's The Devil's Staircase followed, in stark contrast, by one of Messiaen's Meditations on the Infant Jesus.
Monday, Feb. 14-Wednesday, Feb. 16
On a cold and rainy Valentine's Day, Californian and Cleveland Institute student Grace Fong warms our hearts with a beautiful program that ranges from the baroque gentility of Handel to the dramatic dissonance of 20th-century composer Kenneth Leighton. Belarussian Daniel Shleyenkov charms the audience with an eccentric version of Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No. 2, though the jury doesn't look nearly as enthusiastic.
The eccentricities continue into the evening; Chinese-born Houstonian Amy Yang closes -- and characterizes -- the day with breathless, overly intense Schumann and Bach. Meanwhile, outside, it's pouring rain; the auditions have run late; and the cars booked to take the jurors back to their hotel aren't there. I join the jurors on the sidewalk, tired, cold and wet, contemplating this marathon we call the Cliburn competition.
Looking forward to a day off upon arrival in Texas, the jurors learn that Friday will instead be devoted to watching five videotaped auditions, including two from competitors who became ill and one who had visa problems. But on the whole, they are a cheerful bunch, perhaps because the end is in sight.
After four days of live auditions in Fort Worth, beginning Saturday, jurors will embark on the painstaking process of narrowing the field. Arguments will ensue. Sleep will be lost.
But then, when the final 30 are chosen, the competition really begins.
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Отчёт о прослушивании по видеокассетам для несмогших приехать:
Cliburn jurors screen video auditions of 5 pianists
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - The auditions for the 2005 Cliburn competition took on a surreal aspect Friday afternoon -- at Marvin Electronics on South Hulen Street, of all places.
There, the five members of the screening jury, who have heard more than 100 live auditions in concert halls in Europe and New York, huddled inside a small home theater to watch five pianists audition via video recordings.
With the fast-forward feature available, the jurors made quick work of it. (One can't help thinking that they must have wished for such a shortcut many times during the past few weeks.)
In the case of 2001 finalist Xiaohan Wang, who had to cancel his scheduled live audition because of severe abdominal pain, the jurors decided, after listening to just a few phrases of each of his two pieces, that he was still playing at the same high level that took him so far four years ago. Wang played beautifully clear and powerful renditions of Beethoven's Sonata No. 6 in F and Liszt's Sonata in B minor.
Three other Chinese pianists were heard. Sa Chen, 25, attempted to audition in Lugano, Switzerland, but was thwarted by border guards who declared her documents incomplete. (I couldn't help wondering what sort of threat to Swiss national security the petite pianist could have offered.) Pianists Yu Chin and Xing Du had difficulty traveling from mainland China. Jurors methodically listened to essential passages from each.
But the DVD from Russian-born Yevgeny Sudbin, 24, sparked a lively controversy among jurors. Sudbin withdrew from the 2001 Cliburn and has done the same in several other major competitions. He also canceled his live audition in Utrecht, Netherlands, this year for vague reasons. At least one juror suggested that the jury should not even watch his audition tape.
They did watch. And Sudbin's audition was by far the most impressive of the afternoon. His well-produced DVD presented an attractive, polished performer who was equally convincing in Haydn, Brahms and Debussy. It will be interesting to see whether he's invited once again to play in the main competition.
The live auditions resume at 2 p.m. today at Ed Landreth Auditorium at Texas Christian University.
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О начале прослушивании в Форт-Уорте:
Screening jury comes home for final phase of auditions
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - The five members of the Cliburn screening jury, having traveled to the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and New York, finally settled in Fort Worth on Saturday for the final phase of their search for the 30 pianists who will compete in the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
The competition, in May and June, will be in Bass Hall. The Fort Worth auditions, however, are in Ed Landreth Auditorium at Texas Christian University. There, American pianist Jade Simmons, 27, a Miss America runner-up and graduate of Rice University, gave the day a musically poetic opening, beginning with a songlike rendition of Liszt's Sonetto 104 del Petrarca, a work that originated as a vocal setting of a sonnet of 14th-century Italian poet Francesco Petrarch. Problems with details, particularly in the intricate passage-work of the rest of her program, which included Chopin's Scherzo in B minor and Barber's Sonata, limited her chances to advance.
Likewise, 21-year-old Australian pianist David Fung, opened very strongly with a lightning-quick Sonata of Scarlatti as a warm-up for the Chorale and Variations of Henri Dutilleux, an appealingly dissonant and dramatic work from 1947, wisely chosen to show off velocity, volume, stamina and wide range of color and mood. After a promisingly elegant start in Chopin's Ballade in F minor, however, Fung lapsed into an undernourished reading that extended to his next piece, Ravel's La Valse.
The most successful performance came from Italian-born, Texas-based Domenico Cospoti, 29, a graduate of Southern Methodist University who studies with TCU's Tamas Ungar. Codispoti made sense of Czech composer Leos Janacek's emotionally elusive Sonata 1.X.1905, a work inspired by the death of a pro-Czech demonstrator in Brno on Oct. 1, 1905, then continued with an impressively performed set of six of Rachmaninoff's Etudes-Tableaux.
Although the afternoon session opened lyrically, the evening opened dramatically as American Elizabeth Schumann, 23, attacked the left-hand-only introduction of John Corigliano's Etude Fantasy. Schumann, who was accepted into the 2001 Cliburn competition but withdrew, completed her audition with a delicate Haydn Sonata in E Major (Hob. XVI:31) and a triptych of Schubert songs transcribed by Lizst.
Slovenian Jan Bratoz, 27, took a subtle approach, with an introspective program of Bach, Bartok and contemporary Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti. Ukrainian Anna Polusmiak, 21, came from an opposite direction with two of the toughest challenges in the piano repertoire, Beethoven's Op. 111 and Stravinsky's Petrouschka, succeeding in the former but faltering in the latter.
The final performer, Heidi Hau, had yet to perform at press time.
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О том же дне прослушиваний: Финалистка конкурса "Мисс Америка" участвует в прослушиваниях:
Pianist makes herself at home
FORT WORTH - Jade Simmons once stood on the runway as first runner-up to Miss America, and she has been a spokeswoman for the Labor Department's Youth Opportunity Movement.
But taking the stage Saturday at Texas Christian University to kick off local screening recitals for the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition felt a little like coming home.
"I remember seeing the Van Cliburn on television when I was young and I didn't know what it was but I knew that I wanted to do that," Simmons said after her performance. "I expected to have a lot of nerves. But when I sat down, I felt like this is where I was supposed to be."
After hearing more than 100 pianists in Europe and New York, the Van Cliburn screening jury is listening to the final 27 auditions at TCU's Ed Landreth Auditorium.
The auditions, being held through Tuesday, are free.
On March 1, the Van Cliburn Foundation will announce the 30 pianists chosen for this year's competition. After more than two weeks of performances, starting May 20 at Bass Performance Hall, the winners will be announced June 5.
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О прослушиваниях 20-го февраля в Форт-Уорте:
Weeding through the competitors
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - The 2005 Cliburn International Piano Competition screening jury moved into the home stretch Sunday.
Three ambitious young pianists made their bids in the afternoon session at Ed Landreth Auditorium on the Texas Christian University campus, producing a few interesting moments -- but, alas, no one likely to advance in this highly competitive field.
Jung-Yang Shin, 30, a Canadian-born South Korean currently studying at Rice University made an appealing entry with Rachmaninoff's flashy solo piano arrangements of some of J.S. Bach's music for violin, but spoiled it with a heavy foot on the pedal and an overly aggressive use of rubato. She progressed through works of Mozart, Chopin and Szymanowski but never quite recovered.
French Canadian David Jalbert, 27, likewise entered impressively with a vigorous reading of American composer John Corigliano's Etude Fantasy before lapsing, inexplicably, into bashful, colorless renditions of Faure and J.S. Bach.
TCU student Juan Carlos Gutierrez-Cruz, 29, impressed with Ginastera's Danzas Argentinas. Unfortunately, he offered only shy versions of Liszt's La Valee d'Obermann and Schubert's Sonata in A minor.
In the evening session, 2001 Cliburn finalist Alexey Koltakov, 26, made a compelling bid to return with well-shaped, dramatic performances of Liszt's Sonata in B Minor and Horwitz's version of Liszt's piano solo arrangement of Danse Macabre. Chinese-born Yang Shen, 27, of California followed, ranging convincingly across classical, romantic and impressionistic repertoires of Clementi, Scriabin and Debussy. However, the razor-sharp precision of Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody eluded her.
Andrey Ponochevny, 28, a Belarusian studying at TCU, drowned music of Brahms and Liszt in Slavic passion -- but was on target for Scriabin's Sonata No. 4.
A second rendition of Scriabin's sonata closed the evening in a meticulously detailed performance by Vakhtang Kodanashvili, 27, a student of Alexander Toradze at Indiana University-South Bend.
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О прослушиваниях 21-го февраля в Форт-Уорте:
Key performers
For jury, it's an unusual mix
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Classical Music Critic
FORT WORTH - Monday's auditions for the 2005 Cliburn Competition produced an odd mixture of amazing high points and puzzling lows -- sometimes in the same audition.
The listening ends today for the screening jury, which has heard more than 120 pianists in Europe and the United States. On Wednesday it will pick 30 to return in May and June.
Minsoo Sohn, a 28-year-old Korean, presented one of the finest performances of Schubert I've heard, opening his audition with that composer's profoundly melodic Sonata in A minor (D. 537). He was equally impressive in the piano solo transcription of Rachmaninoff's song Lilacs. But his ventures into the bolder virtuoso repertoire -- Horowitz's Carmen variations and Stravinsky's Petrouchka -- were riddled with missed notes.
Korean Yoon-Soo Lee, 26, was winningly serene in Mozart's Sonata in C (K. 330) but followed with emotionally malnourished takes on Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie and Ravel's La Valse.
Russian Sergei Kuznetsoff, 26, erred in the opposite direction with a brutally tense rendition of Schumann's Intermezzos, Opus 4. But his performance of the rarely heard Sonata No. 3 in C minor by 20th-century Russian romantic Nikolai Miaskovsky was noisily compelling and dramatic, as was his flashy closing item, Prokofiev's Toccata.
Russian Tatiana Larionova, 25, opened the evening session with an audition highlighted by the brilliant dissonance of Bartok's Etude No. 2. The energetic virtuosity of Georgian Edisher Savitski, 28, overwhelmed the poetry in Schumann's Symphonic Etudes but was perfect for Scriabin's ecstatic Sonata No. 7.
Italian Valeria Vetruccio, 29, an Italian studying at Southern Methodist University, was out of her depth, failing to capture the necessary energy in the music of Liszt and Ravel, or the lyric expressiveness in works by Rachmaninoff and Chopin.
American Andrew Brownell, 26, had his music well-controlled technically but turned into an emotional bulldozer as he plowed through works of Messiaen and Bach before settling more comfortably into Chopin's Scherzo No. 4 in E.
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Прослушивания 22-го февраля в Форт-Уорте:
Screening auditions end nicely
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Classical Music Critic
FORT WORTH - After hearing nearly 140 live auditions on two continents, the five-member Cliburn Competition screening jury heard the final six auditioners Tuesday in the Ed Landreth Auditorium at TCU.
Two of the most interesting performers of the day were TCU graduates, both of whom participated in the 2001 Cliburn Competition. Japanese-born Tadashi Imai, 29, opened the day with his characterically impressive combination of intellect and emotion in works of Berg, Chopin and Debussy. Belarussian Yuri Blinov, 29, made one of the strongest showings of the entire auditions with an all-Russian recital that closed with his own piano solo transcription of Tchaikovsky's orchestral tone poem Francesca da Rimini.
Ukrainian-born Canadian Dmitri Levkovich, 25, devoted his entire audition to Rachmaninoff's Thirteen Preludes, Opus 32, succeeding admirably in showing off the huge expressive and technical range this set requires.
Lithuanian Andrius Zlabys, 27, was convincingly assertive in J.S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, but smothered Brahms' Intermezzo in A from Opus 118 and Beethoven's "Tempest" Sonata in intensity. Chinese-born American Ning An, 28, who teaches at Lee College in Tennessee, displayed a well-projected singing tone in works of Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Liszt. Moldavian Marianna Prjevalskaya, 22, allowed her exploration of works of Chopin and Rachmaninoff to bog down in indulgent expression.
The jurors will select 30 competitors to perform at the competition at Bass Performance Hall in May and June; their selection will be announced Tuesday.
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Всё нижепроцитированное написано штатным критиком газеты Star Telegram, выходящей в Далласе. Критика зовут Уэйн Ли Гей (да, :-) не повезло с фамилией...), фактически он постоянно прикомандированный критик конкурса: сидит на всех прослушиваниях как самого конкурса (обложившись стопками нот прямо в партере :-) ), так и отборов на него, участвует в мероприятиях, проводимых жюри...
Тем кто заинтересуется и осилит чтение, предлагаю подумать о ставках на прошедших на конкурс; впрочем, большие ставки делать не советую, т.к. результаты могут удивить. :-) Впрочем, ждать осталось недолго: официально их обещали объявить во вторник.
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Для начала--предварительная статья:
And then there were 147
Wayne Lee Gay
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Published: Sunday, December 5, 2004
That distant rumble you hear is the sound of furious practicing as 147 ambitious young pianists prepare to audition for the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
All have the same goal: to be selected as one of the 30 musicians who will come to Fort Worth next year to compete in the world's most prestigious piano contest, at Bass Performance Hall.
The Cliburn Foundation has chosen, from among 270 written applications, those who will be invited to audition before a screening jury. Foundation President Richard Rodzinski studied each application, then followed up with phone conversations with teachers and references. He ended up selecting the highest number of auditioners in the history of the quad-rennial event.
All but two of them will perform a 40-minute live recital before a jury of five distinguished musicians who will travel, in January and February, to Utrecht, Netherlands; St. Petersburg, Russia; Lugano, Switzerland; New York City; and Fort Worth's Ed Landreth Auditorium for the auditions. (Because of various complications involved in arranging travel, two Chinese applicants will audition by videotape.)
It's noteworthy that the audition pool includes 12 of the 30 pianists who played in the main competition in 2001 -- an unusually high number. (Only five 1997 competitors auditioned in 2001; they included eventual gold medalists Olga Kern and Stanislav Ioudenitch.) Though there's no guarantee any returnees will pass the auditions this time, we could end up with an unusually high number of players returning to Bass Hall.
"Apparently, they were impressed by witnessing firsthand the enormous benefits that this competition gives," Rodzinski says.
The returnees include two 2001 finalists, Ukrainian-born Australian Alexey Koltakov and Wang Xiaohan of China, and two semifinalists, Davide Franceschetti of Italy and Sergey Koudriakov of Russia. Others trying again are Yuri Blinov (Belarus), Ying Feng (China), Tadashi Imai (Japan), Albert Mamriev (Israel), Maxim Manioukov (Russia), Alexandre Moutouzkine (Russia), Jong Hwa Park (South Korea) and Andrew Russo (United States).
The young pianists hail from 34 countries. There are 19 Americans trying out, but, as usual, Russia claims by far the largest number of contestants, with 29 (up from 20 in 2001). Thirteen applicants come from other former Soviet republics. The biggest surge, though, is in auditioners from China, who number 19 (up from 8 in 2001).
"This is just the beginning of a reflection of the huge interest in Western art music in China," says Rodzinski, who expects the Chinese presence in classical music to continue to grow in years ahead.
Though intensive practice is a way of life for pianists at this level, applicants have different approaches to preparing for the auditions.
One hopeful, Jade Simmons, 27, is a former Miss Illinois and first runner-up in the Miss America pageant. She says that in addition to a rigorous eight-hours-a-day practice routine, she'll run and lift weights to build stamina in the weeks ahead.
"My physical health always affects my playing," she says.
Simmons, a graduate of Northwestern University and Rice University who now lives in Humble, will perform works by Barber, Chopin and Liszt when she auditions in Fort Worth.
Minnesota native Gregory Anderson, 22, who studies at the Juilliard School in New York, has a busy career as a soloist and as a duo pianist with Elizabeth Roe, another applicant.
"I'm preparing for so many other things that I don't really have a strategy or plan for the audition," Anderson says. He admits, however, that the Cliburn Competition is something that he has been aiming toward since childhood. He'll perform music by Ravel and Liszt for his audition in New York.
Elizabeth Schumann, 22, who was selected to appear at the 2001 Cliburn but who withdrew just two weeks before the competition, says her decision to apply again was "a very personal decision and an important step in my life."
Schumann, who was the youngest pianist invited to compete last time, dropped out at the urging of her teacher at the Cleveland Conservatory, Sergei Babayan, who felt that she wasn't ready for the competition. Schumann has since moved to Los Angeles and now studies with John Perry at the Colburn School of the Performing Arts. She will audition in Fort Worth with music by Corigliano, Haydn and Liszt.
Among the three Fort Worth-based pianists who will compete, Juan Carlos Gutierrez-Cruz, 29, a native of Colombia who studies with John Owings at Texas Christian University, says that playing in the Cliburn Competition has "been a dream of mine for a long time."
He squeezes at least four hours of practice daily into a schedule that includes studio teaching at Arlington Heights Music Academy and serving as staff pianist at River Oaks United Methodist Church.
The Cliburn competition was founded in Fort Worth in 1962 in honor of the young Texas pianist Van Cliburn, who had made international headlines and warmed Cold War politics by taking a gold medal at the 1958 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. By the 1980s, the Cliburn had become the leading piano competition in the world; the international success of 2001 co-gold medalist Olga Kern further enhanced the event's international reputation.
After the auditions, round one of the Cliburn will take place May 20-24. Twelve competitors will advance to the semifinals, to be held on May 26-29, and six will compete in the final round, June 1-5. The gold-medal winner or winners will receive a cash prize of $20,000, management for three concert seasons, a recording contract from harmonia mundi usa and subsidized air travel.
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Отчёт об одном из дней прослушиваний в Утрехте:
Eccentric Ukrainian could make an impact
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
UTRECHT, Netherlands - His haircut's bad, his tie is atrocious. He stares at the ceiling and sticks his tongue out while he plays the piano.
But Ukrainian-born Alexei Grynyuk, 28, created a stir in the attentive audience of about 40 Monday night at the close of the second day of international screening auditions for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Initially educated in Kiev and now living in London, Grynyuk opened his allotted 40 minutes with a strikingly delicate, sweetly voiced but compelling rendition of the doleful Sonata F-sharp minor of Muzio Clementi, an Italian contemporary of Mozart and Beethoven.
Having established fearlessness as well as originality in the music of the classical era, Grynyuk moved on to more standard competition fare of Rachmaninoff and Chopin -- but with a distinctive take. Grynyuk floated, sang and then marched through a triptych of Preludes by Rachmaninoff, giving new energy to even the old familiar G minor.
And he found wonder and surprise along with a gorgeous, singerlike tone in Chopin's Nocturne in B (Opus 9, No. 3).
The gradual, masterfully planned intensification of the performance climaxed with a heart-stopping rendition of Liszt's famous Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, performed with Vladimir Horowitz's added frills and thunderbolts, aurally deduced by Grynyuk from Horowitz's recording.
Because only 30 of the 145 auditioners will make the cut, it's no sure thing that Grynyuk will come to Fort Worth in May; but he'll definitely make a strong impression if he does, eccentric appearance and all.
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Сводный отчёт о прослушиваниях в Утрехте:
The Cliburn 2005
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Starting today, we're globetrotting with the Cliburn jurors as they audition the most passionate young pianists in the world for a spot in Fort Worth's legendary competition. Our classical music critic Wayne Lee Gay will dispatch four diaries, offering you an intimate look at the competitors, the music that moves them and the nailbiting decisions that must be made to narrow the list to 30. So listen up. May 20 through June 5, the finalists will be pursuing their dreams at Bass Hall.
Notes from Utrecht
The diary: stormy music and weather
Saturday, Jan. 15:
No snow, no frozen canals. It's cool and blustery, with patches of sun and gusts of cool wind brushing the flat Dutch landscape as a party of eight travelers makes its way from the busy modernity of Amsterdam airport to the ancient market town of Utrecht.
Packed cozily with much luggage into a van, the five-member screening jury is accompanied by one spouse as well as Cliburn Foundation President Richard Rodzinski and foundation chairman Alann Sampson. Three had begun the journey in Fort Worth and three in New York, making a rough midwinter Atlantic crossing. One had flown up from Munich and another from Milan.
Ensconced on their arrival in the Grand Hotel Karel V, a restored Renaissance-era building near Utrecht's center, they relax and meditate on the monumental task ahead. Within the next six weeks, they will travel thousands of miles to listen to more than 140 of the world's finest young pianists -- and finish with the even harder task of choosing just 30 of them to compete in this year's Cliburn.
Sunday, Jan. 16
Though Utrecht is at the heart of modern Europe, it's a city that still shuts down on Sunday in a way that would remind Texas old-timers of the blue-law days. And although members of the jury enjoy comfortable accommodations, thanks to a good deal on off-season rooms, these distinguished musicians and classical-music-industry opinion leaders walk to the first auditions in the cold January damp over rough cobbled streets and sidewalks.
It is early evening, and a friendly crowd of 40 to 70 people will join them at the tall, octagonal, piano-friendly
Cliburnalia
Faces in the crowd
Henri Delbeau, a New York-based physician, accomplished pianist and finalist at the 2002 Cliburn amateur competition in Fort Worth, flew to the Netherlands to relax and listen to the auditions. And Wednesday, French filmmaker Andy Sommer arrived with a hand-held camera and began filming footage for the 2005 Cliburn documentary. recital hall housed in a modern complex in the center of the city. Busts of Debussy, Bartok and Utrecht-born composer Johan Wagenaar guard the lobby and set a tone of genial seriousness; a glossy European Steinway concert grand dominates the concert room itself. (Savvy listeners can see the keyboard and the hands mirrored in the stage's reflective ceiling.)
It's a two-Petrouchka night as the first auditioner, Chinese-born Wen-Yu Shen, 18, and the second, Bulgarian Evgeni Bozhanov, 20, both trot out Stravinsky's notorious finger-buster. In any other setting, away from such close comparison, Bozhanov's rendition, paired with elegant tidbits of Mozart and Chopin, would have come across as more than adequate; next to Shen's, whose barely post-adolescent appearance contradicts an extraordinarily mature performance, Bozhanov's version pales. Russian pianist Natalia Zagalskaia closes the day with a refined but oddly soulless program of music by Chopin, Saint-Saens and 20th-century Swiss composer Frank Martin.
The journey of millions of notes, which will end in Fort Worth in June, has begun.
Monday, Jan. 17
The weather's still unsettled for the first full day of auditions, as the jurors and a loyal crowd of piano buffs (as chatty and opinionated as their counterparts in Fort Worth) wander into the recital hall for the midday session of four performances.
Highly personal viewpoints abound among the auditioners -- as does the music of Liszt. In terms of numbers at least, one can't help noticing the substantial presence of Bulgarians, Chinese and the inevitable Russians studying abroad. But, best of all, there's a willingness and eagerness on the part of these young pianists to play elegantly and gently for at least part of their auditions, generally restricting the inevitable pyrotechnics to just one portion of a performance.
For instance, Bulgarian Viktor Valkov, 24, lingers with Haydn and Scarlatti before launching into Liszt; Taiwanese-born Chun-Chieh Yen, 21, opts for two of the more genteel items in the romantic repertoire -- Schumann's Carnaval and Rachmaninoff's Variations on a Theme of Corelli.
It was in the preliminary round at the 2001 Cliburn that American Andrew Russo broke a barrier of sorts by introducing music by American composer George Crumb, complete with reaching into the piano and strumming the strings. Today, Tashkent-born Eugene Mursky, 29, livens up the evening session with Crumb's Primeval Sounds, which calls not only for string-strumming but also for a small chain placed over a section of the strings, creating a fascinating constant buzz. What's more, Mursky made convincing music out of Crumb's complex instructions -- and also out of a hugely diverse program that packaged the Crumb with Haydn, Chopin and Liszt. If this early trend holds up, the inherently conservative Cliburn competition may become known as a nurturing ground for some new directions in piano music.
Tuesday, Jan. 18
Brief but thoroughly unpleasant downpours alternate with patches of blue sky outside. Inside Utrecht's Muziekcentrum, the first of a short lineup of three auditioners, opens with an elegant rendition by Russian Ilya Rashkovskiy of Liszt's piano transcription of Schubert's song Serenade. (Austrian Florian Krumpoeck, who would have brought the number up to four, postponed his audition with a cut finger; he'll play in Lugano, Switzerland, instead.)
The ghost of Franz Liszt continues to linger over the auditions; Japanese pianist Masataka Takada, 26, ripples through the Feux Follets Etude before diving into the high humor of the Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody; Chinese pianist Chenyin Li, 28, making her second go at the Cliburn competition (she also auditioned in 2001), presents a second, equally glittering rendition of the same showpiece later in the day. Beijing-born Li, chicly gowned in red and black to create an aura of an evening concert at midday, has flown over from London this morning and will fly back this afternoon. She admits in conversation afterward that she took a risk in learning Shostakovich's complex Prelude and Fugue in D-flat, which opened her audition, over the Christmas holidays. But the Russian composer's stormy, moody counterpoint matches the day and may well be the lucky calling card that finally brings Li to Fort Worth.
With an afternoon and evening off, the Cliburn Foundation's Sampson and Rodzinski offer to devise a day trip for the jurors. But with an eye to the stormy skies, the jurors opt to relax in their rooms and prepare for the busy day on Wednesday.
Wednesday, Jan. 19
Wednesday is the traditional market day in Utrecht and, on this cool, sunny day, the square next to the Muziekcentrum is abuzz with flea-market-style activity hours before the five jurors begin to make their way toward the small recital hall.
One cancellation has already affected the day's schedule; 2001 Cliburn finalist Wang Xiaohan sent word on Tuesday that he had undergone an emergency appendicitis. And yet another cancellation will eventually complicate the agenda.
Meanwhile, 27-year-old Julian Gorus, built like a basketball player, at about 6 foot 6, starts the day off big in more ways than one. Gorus is unafraid of broad give-and-take in his playing, beginning with the dreamy delicacy of Ravel's Jeux Deau (a musical description of water at play in a fountain) before moving on to the wide expanses of Liszt's Sonata in B minor; Gorus, fortunately, has the emotional presence to pull off his passionate approach. Next up, German pianist Sebastian Bernard manages to enliven an otherwise unexceptional program with the toccatalike Mouvement Rhythmique of 20th-century Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov.
Late in the afternoon, highly recommended Russian-born pianist Yevginy Sudbin calls in with the flu to further thin down the day's offerings; Rodzinski opines that Sudbin is one who may not reschedule at all. So, it's a skimpy evening of just two auditions awaiting the jury as they walk through the frozen evening, from dinner to the recital hall.
Ukrainian Lilian Akopova, in a boldly sparkling gown, looks like a powerful potential candidate for some future Cliburn as she presents a program of Schumann, Liszt (yes, more Liszt) and Bach-Busoni; she owns flawless technique but, at 21, has an as-yet-underdeveloped stage persona. She has plenty to communicate, but she can't quite reach across the footlights, yet -- like Olga Kern, back in 1997.
Twenty-five-year-old Czech Libor Novacek, however, can communicate, with a technical and tonal control impressive even in the midst of all these other amazing pianists. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, two movements from Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin and a grand finale of Liszt's Dante Sonata send the jury and the audience out with something to ponder on this increasingly cold night.
Thursday, Jan. 20
One after another, they file in, rip through a series of virtuoso showpieces -- with an occasional nod to more delicate or philosophical repertoire -- then disappear. The Soviet Union may be gone, but the series of young pianists that opens the final day of auditions in Utrecht proves that the old Soviet/Russian school of piano is still alive, at least for this generation.
Each ambitious young pianist arrives backed up by a list of competition wins and impressive teachers. Dark-haired, tuxedoed Amir Tebenikhin, 27, a Kazakhi born in Moscow, pulls off the neat trick of a 40-minute program that not only progresses chronologically (from Haydn to Chopin to Liszt to Bartok to Prokofiev) but roughly geographically as well, heading eastward from Germany through Poland and Hungary to Russia. Red-haired Ukrainian Mariya Kim, 23, who (shades of Van Cliburn) studied only with her mother until age 18, gambles all on a virtuoso repertoire of Liszt and Rachmaninoff; Estonian Marko Martin, 29, dresses and looks like a junior executive but gets to the core of Shostakovich's Prelude and Fugue in D minor, a tough, almost austere prophecy of hope from the waning days of Stalinism.
While all of this happens onstage, French filmmaker Andy Sommer, already hard at work on what will eventually be the documentary for the 2005 Cliburn competition, pops up everywhere with his hand-held camera, catching performances, auditioners entering and leaving the stage, audience reaction -- even this reporter sitting at a hotel lobby computer terminal, typing away on this report.
It's cloudy and still unseasonably warm outside, but the jurors will doubtless be pulling their winter coats tighter in a day or two, as they prepare to head eastward themselves. Starting Saturday, they'll be listening to the young Russians who chose to stay behind, as the international auditions continue at the Glazunov Concert Hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Inside the mind of a juror
Does a pianist have to be note-perfect to make the cut? After years of painstaking practice, can one flub in an audition spell disaster?
That's not in the rule book of Cliburn juror and legendary record producer Thomas Frost, even though he has spent his lifetime in an industry that demands perfection. And he has worked with titans of the music world -- Bernstein, Stern, Szell and Horowitz, to name a few.
"Wrong notes might bother other jurors more than they bother me," Frost said during a break in the Utrecht auditions. "How does a flubbed note or two stand in relation to the overall performance? If there's a slip in an otherwise fine performance, I tend toward ignoring it. Especially from someone who is giving all, who is obviously very good, who is playing from the heart."
Born in Vienna, Frost, now 79, immigrated with his family to the United States in 1938 at the time of the Nazi takeover of Austria. He learned violin and piano early, then attended Yale University, where he studied composition with Paul Hindemith. Frost then played violin in various orchestras. In the early 1950s, violist Lillian Fuchs advised the young Frost that the recording industry was about to boom; he took a clerical job at minimum wage at Decca, and the rest is history.
The truly great have valued his input, including Vladimir Horowitz. After decades of working with some of the great musicians of our time, here's a man who brings much depth to the jury -- an impeccable musical sensibility and a strong sense of what moves an audience.
The city: old meets new
The 21st century and the Middle Ages mingle comfortably in Utrecht, a city of 250,000 just 20 miles south of Amsterdam. Residents walk down a centuries-old brick sidewalk to enter McDonald's and KFC; a medieval church tower oversees the modern civic complex that houses concert halls, shops, offices and a train station.
It is the third consecutive time tryouts have been held in Utrecht, an obvious choice as an audition site because of its accessibility by rail, highway or air from across Northern Europe.
"We like to have as many people in the audience for the auditions as possible," says Richard Rodzinski, Cliburn Foundation president. "In a smaller city such as Utrecht, our auditions are more of an event than they would be in Paris or London, and we get a lot of attention."
Utrecht also is comfortable with the idea of importing rather than producing its own music. Although there are no major resident ensembles in the city, major European artists and orchestras crowd the concert agenda at the Muziekcentrum week after week.
About those hobbies
Noticing that Russian pianist Natalia Zagalskaia, 26, listed aerobics as a hobby on her application, we asked her how her healthy habit fit in with her life as a musician. "Well, I have the card for the gym, but I haven't actually done any aerobics yet." We know the feeling. Tashkent-born Eugene Mursky, 29, of Germany, was disarmingly honest. His listed hobbies are snooker, golf, pingpong -- and smoking cigarettes.
What's up with Liszt? So many auditioners are playing music by Franz Liszt -- about 60 of them, or around 40 percent -- that we had to ask why. Here are a few responses so far:
"He has a fascinating personality, and his music fits just right in the hands."
-- Sodi Braide, 29, Nigeria/United Kingdom
"There are lots of pieces by Liszt that show virtuosity without being too long to fit in as part of a 40-minute audition."
-- Chenyin Li, 28, China
"I play the music of Liszt because I love it. He was a great virtuoso, but he was also a great poet, and it's time we rediscovered that aspect.
-- Bertrand Chamayou, 23, France
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О прослушиваниях 22-го января в Петербурге:
Minsk native stands out from the rest in piano competition
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Liszt and Rachmaninoff continued to be the most frequently performed composers Saturday at the international screening auditions for the 2005 Van Cliburn Piano Competition, as the traveling jury for the auditions moved from the Netherlands to Russia.
But Minsk-born, Moscow-trained Andrew Shibko, 29, one of seven ambitious young pianists who auditioned Saturday at St. Petersburg's Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, took a different turn. He focused on the brainy side of romanticism as represented by Schubert's Sonata in A minor (D. 784) and Brahms' Fantasies, Opus 116.
The Schubert sonata stretches lyrical, songlike ideas over a large, three-movement structure and demands breadth of vision and delicacy. Shibko demonstrated both, presenting an impressive range of color on a piano that tended to be clangy for other auditioners. And, in the seven Fantasies of Brahms' Opus 116, he commanded the complex textures and the underlying emotionalism of these autumnal sketches.
In the process, Shibko displayed an absolute technical control, as surely as if he had plowed through any of the more standard piano showpieces. This listener certainly hopes that we hear from Shibko again in Fort Worth at the main competition in May.
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О прослушиваниях 23-го января в Петербурге:
A touch of world-class competition from Russia's great conservatories
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Forget the puny rivalries of American colleges and music departments: Two of the greatest music conservatories in the world went head-to-head Sunday on the second day of the St. Petersburg screening auditions for the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth.
The ornately decorated Glazunov Hall of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory provided the field of battle as three potential stars from the St. Petersburg Conservatory played in the afternoon session, followed by three from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the evening session.
Although it's not difficult to imagine any of these six amazing young musicians taking a medal in the final round of the Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth in June, 26-year-old Valentina Igoshina, a student of medalist producing Sergei Dorensky of the Moscow Conservatory, created the greatest impression of the day in an early evening program that opened with Beethoven's Sonata in E-flat, Opus 27, No. 1.
While the snow swirled outside, Igoshina warmed up the auditorium with a vision of the sonata that was majestically solid but underpinned with a constant sense of a drama unfolding. Moving on to the more passionate literature of the romantic era, she displayed a beautiful, mellow tone (on an unfortunately out-of-tune piano) to launch Chopin's Ballade in F Minor, imbuing this standard favorite with an aura of narration, like a tale told by fireside. Her moppish brown hair flying, she moved on to the unadulterated showmanship of Liszt's glitzy Rapsodie Espagnole, once again proving her dramatic gifts by finding a solid structure in this showpiece and producing a wonderfully rich quality of tone while finding constant moments of suspense and surprise.
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Тоже о прослушиваниях 23-го января в Петербурге:
A touch of world-class competition from Russia's great conservatories
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Forget the puny rivalries of American colleges and music departments: Two of the greatest music conservatories in the world went head-to-head Sunday on the second day of the St. Petersburg screening auditions for the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth.
The ornately decorated Glazunov Hall of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory provided the field of battle as three potential stars from the St. Petersburg Conservatory played in the afternoon session, followed by three from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the evening session.
Although it's not difficult to imagine any of these six amazing young musicians taking a medal in the final round of the Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth in June, 26-year-old Valentina Igoshina, a student of medalist producing Sergei Dorensky of the Moscow Conservatory, created the greatest impression of the day in an early evening program that opened with Beethoven's Sonata in E-flat, Opus 27, No. 1.
While the snow swirled outside, Igoshina warmed up the auditorium with a vision of the sonata that was majestically solid but underpinned with a constant sense of a drama unfolding. Moving on to the more passionate literature of the romantic era, she displayed a beautiful, mellow tone (on an unfortunately out-of-tune piano) to launch Chopin's Ballade in F Minor, imbuing this standard favorite with an aura of narration, like a tale told by fireside. Her moppish brown hair flying, she moved on to the unadulterated showmanship of Liszt's glitzy Rapsodie Espagnole, once again proving her dramatic gifts by finding a solid structure in this showpiece and producing a wonderfully rich quality of tone while finding constant moments of suspense and surprise.
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О прослушиваниях 24-го января в Петербурге:
Pupil garners most spirited applause
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Experienced competition-goers have learned to sit up and listen when a student of Moscow Conservatory professor Lev Naumov walks onstage.
And with good reason, as Gorky-born Evgeny Brakhman, 24, proved when he sat down to play at Glazunov Concert Hall on Monday afternoon in the third day of the Russian auditions for Fort Worth's Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Unassuming but clearly relaxed and confident as he faced the audience in the venerable auditorium, Brakhman opened his 40-minute program with a solid, proclamatory delivery of Mozart's quasi-improvisational Fantasia in C minor.
Having convincingly presented a boldly muscular viewpoint in the classical era, he filled out his remaining time by presenting three contrasting aspects of romantic music. He dashed through the rolling arpeggios of Chopin's Etude in C, then drew back into thoughtful lyricism for Rachmaninoff's Prelude in F-sharp minor.
And he passed the biggest test of the program -- Rachmaninoff's monstrous Sonata No. 2 -- opening with fire and flash before tugging the listener into a lovingly whispered second theme. And he shaped the sprawling, 22-minute-long sonata into a grandly compelling whole. An audience of fellow auditioners and obvious connoisseurs responded with the loudest, most enthusiastic applause of the day.
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О прослушиваниях 25-го января в Петербурге:
Final performance almost like song recital
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - It was almost like being at a song recital when Rem Urasin, 28, born in Kazan but studying in Moscow with renowned Moscow Conservatory professor Lev Naumov, presented the final performance of the Russian auditions for the 2005 Cliburn Competition.
With sharp, dark Tatar features and a serious demeanor, Urasin opened with an energetic rendition of Mozart's Sonata in D (K. 576).
Then the pianistic "singing" began, as he delivered four of Liszt's piano solo arrangements of songs of Schubert. The famous, melodramatic Die Erlkonig (sic! - Сергей), which describes a flight through the night in which a father and child are pursued by an evil spirit, was appropriately multifaceted. The more gentle Serenade showed off a beautiful cantabile tone, particularly in the arresting segment where the melody echoes itself.
Urasin closed his program and the St. Petersburg auditions with a sometimes dry but ultimately demonic rendition of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1, summing up the virtuosity that dominated the four days in the old Russian capital.
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Сводный отчёт о прослушиваниях в Петербурге:
The Cliburn 2005
In a city of czars, palaces and art treasures, the Amazing Race continues
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
We're globetrotting with the Cliburn jurors as they audition the most passionate young pianists in the world for a spot in Fort Worth's legendary competition. Our classical music critic Wayne Lee Gay dispatches his second of four diaries, offering an intimate look at the competitors, the music that moves them and the nailbiting decisions that must be made to narrow the list to 30. So listen up. May 20 through June 5, the finalists will be pursuing their dreams at Bass Hall.
Notes from St. Petersburg
The diary: Russian passions
Saturday, Jan. 22
In the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, a lavishly decorated, 19th-century building restored to its original grandeur in the post-Soviet era, Alexander Glazunov Hall provides a handsome if overheated setting for the St. Petersburg auditions (every interior in Russia seems overheated). Apollo floats above the room on a ceiling fresco, while a portrait of Glazunov, the bearded and stern Russian composer, stares across the stage.
Seven pianists, one from Israel and the rest from Russia or former Soviet republics, perform under the watchful eye of Glazunov and the jury during this long day. Three video-camera operators -- including Cliburn documentary filmmaker Andy Sommer and two local TV people -- prowl the stage quietly during the afternoon performances.
Marina Kolomiytseva, a Russian, is the first standout of the day, convincingly passionate in Beethoven's Sonata No. 18 and downright thrilling in a well-handled presentation of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1; another product of the Moscow Conservatory, 30-year-old Andrew Shibko, is impressive as a mature, commanding artist in an unlikely program of Schubert and Brahms.
Stanislav Khristenko, 20, a student of 2001 Cliburn co-silver medalist Maxim Philippov, trudges grimly onstage and makes an equally awkward exit, but he glows with artistry and personality once he gets his hands on the keys for his program of Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and J.S. Bach.
Sunday, Jan. 23
With no auditions until 2 p.m., the jurors and their entourage (including me) begin the day by heading in a van, through blowing snow, to the Hermitage, the complex of imperial palaces that now serves as a public museum, housing one of the greatest art collections in the world.
The throne rooms intimidate -- as the designers surely intended -- and the sheer number of great artworks is amazing. Yet, in the midst of dozens of works by Picasso, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci and others, a single sculpture by Michelangelo of a crouching boy radiates energy and heat that I can almost feel as I stand beside it.
Later, in a crowded roomful of clocks and jewels by Faberge, the favorite designer of the imperial family in its final decades, I feel both the whimsicality and the aura of impending disaster that surrounds these opulent toys and mementos of one of history's most powerful and tragic dynasties.
The jurors return to the conservatory early in the afternoon for the ongoing parade of young Russians who consistently impress, in the Russian tradition, with volume and speed -- and who occasionally manage to present subtlety and sensitivity as well. The small but intensely interested audience gives the warmest reception to hometown performers from the St. Petersburg Conservatory; the elegantly gowned Anna Sheludko draws the most enthusiastic audience response of the afternoon for her program of Ravel and Rachmaninoff. Friends crowd around her afterward, and she is congratulated by her first piano teacher, who is also her mother.
Between the day's two sessions, Cliburn Chairman Alann Sampson hosts a dinner for the jurors and guests at a nearby Russian-style restaurant to celebrate Cliburn President Richard Rodzinski's 60th birthday. Moscow-based pianist Natalia Trull, renowned mezzo-soprano Elena Obraztsova (accompanied by her poodle, Carmen) and former Tchaikovsky Competition Director Oleg Skorodumov join the intimate party with numerous toasts, presentations of gifts both funny and serious, a bouquet of roses and two hearty rounds of Happy Birthday (led by one of the greatest singers of the age). Afterward, they walk back through the snow to the conservatory for another round of thunderous Russian pianism.
Monday, Jan. 24
Maybe it's the rare winter sunshine gleaming on the snow-brushed palaces and churches that dominate this old imperial capital that draws the biggest audience of the Russian auditions. Two hundred or so music lovers -- including many conservatory students -- in the Glazunov Auditorium are a genial, intent crowd as the series of young Russian players continues.
Two Cliburn competitors from 2001 -- Maxim Manioukov, 25, and Sergey Koudriakov, 27, are back to try again. A fellow student from the Moscow Conservatory, Evgeny Brakhman, 24, is here with them, trading jokes and cigarettes between auditions.
Manioukov and Koudriakov are the veterans, but it's Brakhman who wins the loudest applause, looking and sounding -- with a broad, strongly delivered program of Mozart, Chopin and Rachmaninoff -- like the day's best candidate to move on to the next phase in Fort Worth in May.
Tuesday, Jan. 25
The St. Petersburg winter finally arrives, with a light snowfall and a cold wind as the jurors, with me still tagging along, sneak in some final hours of sightseeing. The contradictions of history abound: A statue of Lenin guards an ugly, Stalin-style office complex as our touring van approaches a forested suburb that contains a retreat favored by the last czars. It's a reminder of a vanished lifestyle enjoyed by a privileged few.
A well-spiced, hearty lunch at a Georgian restaurant follows, after which we visit the massive church where the czars are buried, including the recently re-interred Nicholas II and his family.
A brief meeting -- including traditional Russian toasts -- with St. Petersburg Conservatory rector Alexander Tchaikovsky follows and provides a transition from the world of history and art back to the world of music in the early evening. Two young Muscovite pianists perform, the crowd chatters as busily as Fort Worth music lovers at a concert, and the jury prepares to head west again to Lugano, Switzerland, where auditions resume on Friday.
Smokin' at the Cliburn
Russians Maxim Manioukov, 25, and Sergey Koudriakov, 27, made a splash at the 2001 Cliburn when they appeared in a memorable Star-Telegram photo, smoking outside Bass Performance Hall. Both of the piano bad boys are back this year, and they're all grown up.
Manioukov, left, lean, intense and ponytailed, found unexpected humor and energy in Beethoven's rarely played Variations on a Theme of Salieri before launching into a huge, warm version of Ravel's murderously difficult Gaspard de la Nuit. But the first thing he mentioned when we grabbed him backstage was that he has become a father. "I lost my youthfulness, but gained maturity," Manioukov said. "Parenthood helped me develop as a person."
His friend Koudriakov, right, who rated a special jury award in 2001 in Fort Worth, also has become a father -- besides winning the Geneva Competition and becoming a teaching assistant at the Moscow Conservatory.
"I'm completely busy," he says, with parenthood, practicing, teaching and a busier performance schedule after his Geneva win.
But neither of the guys has kicked the smoking habit.
Cliburnalia
Applause-o-meter
We've occasionally complained that Fort Worth crowds give a standing ovation to every performer who manages to get through a concert. Things are very different at these European auditions. Particularly in St. Petersburg, where Cliburn competitors were met with the deafening sound of silence.
There was no applause between works. Ever.
Performers hardly seemed to mind, though, taking their time to prepare emotionally for the next piece. A few favorite Russian pianists drew some response at the end of their recitals -- but even then it was only a short period of rhythmic clapping. Talk about tough crowds.
Gettin' in tune
Three concert grands sit on the stage of Glazunov Concert Hall at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but only one has been used for the auditions. Which leads us to wonder how bad the other two must be. The instrument was miserably out of tune during the first two days of auditions. Jurors complained -- and Cliburn Prez. Richard Rodzinski said it was beginning to sound "like a honky-tonk piano."
Rodzinski talked to the tuner, who agreed to try harder on Monday and Tuesday. But the results were mixed at best.
None of the auditioners griped, however. The only sound they could hear was the jangling of their nerves.
The city: a legacy of music
Tchaikovsky lived, worked and died here. Prokofiev and Shostakovich studied at the very music conservatory that's home to these 2005 Cliburn auditions. In St. Petersburg, a graceful city of palaces, canals, embassies and churches, ghosts of classical music are everywhere.
St. Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great and designed to be an elegant European capital that could rival the likes of Venice and Vienna. But the 20th century brought hard times: In the wake of the communist revolution, the Russian imperial city was stripped of its status and its name, becoming Leningrad, one of many regional capitals in a colorless dictatorship.
St. Petersburg will never again be an imperial capital, but now, again bearing its traditional name, it has re-emerged as the most civilized and interesting city in Russia. The fabulous palaces are public museums, drawing visitors from around the world to the priceless art treasures collected by the old imperial aristocracy. Though war and communism left their mark on St. Petersburg, the grandeur and lively beauty remain.
After holding auditions in Moscow in 1997 and 2001, the Cliburn Foundation has at last moved them to the city that gave the world some of history's greatest music and musicians.
-- Wayne Lee Gay
The man behind the film
French filmmaker Andy Sommer's challenge is to produce a documentary on the 2005 competition that looks completely different from the previous six Cliburn documentaries.
But he and Cliburn Foundation President Richard Rodzinski both know that won't be easy.
"The structure of the competition is so strong, it will be hard to break out and find a different way of presenting the story," Sommer explains.
Sommer, 46, has been busy at these auditions, collecting an extensive amount of material with a lightweight, state-of-the-art Sony digital camera. The model isn't yet available for sale, but Sony provided one especially for this project. Two other cameramen will join Sommer in Fort Worth at the main competition; meanwhile, he'll be trying out ideas and collecting prodigious amounts of material at all the auditions.
Sommer was born in Hamburg, Germany, and graduated from a Paris film school. He built his career by making music-focused documentaries for French television (in France, TV stations are required to show a certain amount of cultural programming -- an idea well worth pondering in the United States).
Sommer has worked with several renowned conductors, including Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta and Lorin Maazel, to explore interpretations of great composers, as in In Search of Beethoven and In Search of Schubert. In the process, he learned new ways to present classical music that he hopes to apply to his documentary of the 2005 Cliburn.
And, besides seeing him on the job, camera in hand, Fort Worth music lovers can catch up with his past work when these and other films are shown at "Sommerfest, " a free film festival May 30-June 4 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, during breaks in the piano competition
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Сводный отчёт о прослушиваниях в Лугано, Швейцария:
The Cliburn 2005
In a city of vistas and well-heeled tourists, the Amazing Race continues
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
We're globetrotting with the Cliburn jurors as they audition the most passionate young pianists in the world for a spot in Fort Worth's legendary competition. Our classical music critic Wayne Lee Gay dispatches his third of four diaries, offering an intimate look at the competitors, the music that moves them and the nailbiting decisions that must be made to narrow the list to 30. So listen up. May 20 through June 5, the finalists will be pursuing their dreams at Bass Hall.
Notes from Lugano
The diary: Embracing liberation
Thursday, Jan. 27
On a rare day with neither travel nor auditions, we have a chance to drink in the beauty of Lake Lugano and the city's snowcapped mountains -- a welcome contrast to the crowded, antique opulence of St. Petersburg.
The commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz dominates broadcast news in Europe; although the world has a long way to go, I can't help being struck by the friendliness of this group of music professionals who 60 years ago were in some cases on different sides in the bitter struggle of that era. In January 1945, Cliburn juror Jurgen Meyer-Josten was a 10-year-old who, after several years of living in rural eastern Germany, had returned to Berlin to flee the advancing Soviet army. Marcello Abbado was a student at the Milan Conservatory, living with his parents, who were illegally harboring two Jewish children in their home in German-occupied northern Italy.
On the other side of the lines, Thomas Frost, who had fled Vienna in 1938 with his family shortly after Hitler's takeover of Austria, was a first-year college student in mechanical engineering at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute; John Giordano was a grade-schooler in Erie, Pa.
Yoheved Kaplinsky wasn't born yet, but her father had already been liberated from his hiding place in Poland while her mother and an older brother were in Palestine as refugees; a sister had perished in the Holocaust. Having been separated at the beginning of the war, Kaplinsky's mother and father each assumed that the other was dead. They would be reunited the following summer in Palestine, where Kaplinsky was born several years later.
Thus, 60 years after that time of terror and hope, two Americans, an Israeli-born American, a German and an Italian travel together across a once-ruined landscape seeking great pianists among the grandchildren of the survivors of World War II.
Friday, Jan. 28
Jurors stroll through the upscale shopping district before packing into cars and heading for the high-tech, wood-paneled radio studio where they listen to seven pianists representing Poland, Italy, Britain, Spain and Germany.
The music of Liszt and Rachmaninoff, which has so far dominated audition repertoires, turns up a little less frequently in the programs of these southern and western Europeans; now, we're hearing Messiaen, Villa-Lobos and Ginastera. And although there is still plenty of brilliance among these youngsters, there are many more attempts to impress the jury with subtlety and style than with the flash and noise that reigned in St. Petersburg.
Saturday, Jan. 29
Polish-born, Italian-based pianist Marlena Maciejkowicz calls Cliburn president Richard Rodzinski just minutes before her audition. She's in her car, lost in in the picturesque, winding streets of Lugano. And she's frantic. He manages to calm her via cellphone and direct her in.
She arrives and walks onstage glowing, looking sophisticatedly Slavic in deep purple as she dives into music of Handel, Chopin and Prokofiev.
This leads off a generally pleasant, sometimes amazing afternoon of monuments of the piano literature. Long-haired Spaniard Horacio Lavandera, a 20-year-old freshly emerging from teen prodigyhood, follows Maciejkowicz with Chopin's Sonata No. 2 and Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7. Lavandera's interesting but immature artistry inspires hope that even if he doesn't make the cut this time around, he will try again in four years. Italian Davide Cabassi, 28, proves that sometimes with age comes greater artistry. His impressive, delicately mature performance of works of Debussy, Stravinsky and J.S. Bach seems likely to bring him to Texas in May.
Italian Alessandro Roselletti, 29, closed what was a short day (due to some cancellations) with flourishes of Liszt, Chopin and Scriabin.
Sunday, Jan. 30
With sun beaming on the mountains and lake, Sunday begins as the most glorious day, weatherwise, of the European auditions.
It's also one of the busiest, with seven auditioners crossing the stage. Most have at least one strength and several weaknesses. French pianist Muriel Berard delivers a delicate Bach; her style becomes anemic when she applies the same sensibilities to late Beethoven in the Sonata, Opus 110. British pianist Danny Driver organizes Chopin's Ballade in A-flat and Scriabin's Second Sonata neatly but turns the slow movement of a Haydn Sonata into an overly detailed ordeal.
Davide Franceschetti, a 2001 semifinalist hoping to return, fascinates in Schoenberg's biting Six Little Pieces, Op. 19, but makes so many controversial choices in Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition that he may frighten this jury off. Strong Haydn and Prokofiev contrast with oddly detached Rachmaninoff from Chinese pianist Jie Zheng, 23, dressed in a midnight-blue gown and somewhat incongruous schoolgirl eyeglasses.
The brilliant finale from Italian Alberto Nosé makes the day totally worthwhile, as he explores a heavily romantic program of Chopin, Granados and Ravel; but it's after 11 p.m., and at least part of the entourage expects to leave the hotel at 5 a.m. Monday to catch overseas flights. With Europe behind them, they have a little over a week to rest (and catch their breath) before the seven long days of auditions in New York, beginning Feb. 10 at Rockefeller University.
The hair apparent?
In 2001, 24-year-old Davide Franceschetti swept into the hearts of Cliburn fans with his elegant Italian pianism and his unforgettable flowing locks. He reached the semifinals, earning a jury discretionary award and a prize for chamber music. Now 28, still single and still Hollywood handsome, Franceschetti auditioned to return to Fort Worth in Lugano on Sunday.
His career is still modest by star standards. He estimates performing 15 to 20 professional concerts a year, so he's hoping a second shot at the Cliburn would provide greater exposure in America.
"The musical life is difficult," he says, just out of concert attire and into jeans. "The Cliburn is an opportunity to show what I can do."
Which is why his somewhat risky audition repertoire of Schoenberg's Six Little Pieces from Op. 19 (thorny and dissonant) and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (showy but overworked by any standards) was a bit surprising.
"I know it's strange to start with the Schoenberg," he admits. "I changed my program every day for a while. But I feel strongly about those pieces, and want to play them."
In recent years, the jury discretionary award has proven to be a step toward stardom. Olga Kern won one in 1997, then won gold in 2001. Franceschetti, no doubt, is hoping that history will repeat itself in 2005.
A symphony of mountains and music
European millionaires vacation and hold corporate meetings in this lakeside Swiss resort city of 25,000; the market area, which has the look of a traditional European village, is lined with shops selling Gucci, Armani, Versace and Louis Vuitton. The prices in these shops -- and the restaurants and hotels -- are as high as the beautiful snow-capped mountains visible from all over Lugano.
Musically, Switzerland has provided a vacation stopover for many great composers, including Wagner, Brahms and Mahler. The mountain-bound, fiercely independent country boasts Ernest Bloch, Frank Martin and Arthur Honneger as its greatest composers -- they're even pictured on the country's paper currency.
Since the last Cliburn auditions here in 2001, Argentine pianist Martha Argerich has founded an annual summer festival in the city, gathering the elite of the musical world for two weeks of intimate concerts every June. Milan's principal airport is only an hour away by car; the pleasant atmosphere of the city, the fine auditorium and cooperative administration at the Italian Swiss Radio, which serves the Italian-speaking corner of Switzerland, have made it a logical audition center for two consecutive Cliburn competitions.
And the food, combining elements of northern Italian and Swiss cuisine, doesn't hurt Lugano's popularity with Cliburn jurors and their entourage.
-- Wayne Lee Gay
Cliburnalia
A little bit country
Italian Roberto Plano, 26, who performed music by Brahms, Villa-Lobos and Ginastera in his audition Friday in Lugano, should feel right at home in North Texas if he makes the cut -- and not just because his last name is Plano. He is a fan of country music and of line dancing. His brother, who learned to love country music in Dublin, Ireland -- of all places -- introduced Plano to the music of Garth Brooks, Brooks & Dunn, Clint Black and George Strait several years ago.
"He also started teaching line dance in a dance school close to Milan," Plano says in an e-mail. "I'm pretty sure that he was the first to introduce this kind of dance in Italy."
Plano, who won first prize in the Cleveland Competition in 2001, says he always tries to catch CMT when he travels in the United States.
Competitors come and go
• Chinese pianist Jin Ju, who already has a busy career in Europe, withdrew from the auditions on the advice of her manager, who feared that a poor showing in the Cliburn might shoot down her rising star. Smelling a potential champion, Cliburn president Richard Rodzinski urged her to reconsider. Then, realizing that her busy European schedule would cause problems if she emerged with a medal in Fort Worth, he bade her a genial farewell.
• Sa Chen, another promising Chinese pianist, was turned away from entry to Switzerland at the Swiss-Italian border because of inadequate papers. She returned to Hanover, Germany, flew back to Lugano and was turned away a second time. She'll send a taped audition to Fort Worth for consideration.
• Austrian Florian Krumpoeck, who postponed his scheduled audition in Utrecht after cutting his finger, arrived in Lugano on Sunday to perform, good-naturedly lamenting only three hours of sleep after a concert in Vienna on Saturday.
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О прослушиваниях 12-го февраля в Нью-Йорке:
Young pianist shows brilliance
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
NEW YORK - Wearing a glittering jacket almost as flashy as parts of her program, 19-year-old pianist Ang Li announced herself as a potential figure of huge significance on the international concert stage Saturday at Rockefeller University in her audition for the 2005 Cliburn Competition.
Ang's background is impressively international: Born in Beijing, she is now a Canadian citizen living in New York. And her background touches on two major power bases in the musical community in the United States, with five years of study at Curtis followed by entry into the master's program at The Juilliard School last fall.
Her impressive musical pedigree was evident from the first notes of Haydn's Sonata No. 50 in C. She didn't so much play as proclaim the opening triad, which most pianists treat as light and humorous. It was the generous, muscular sort of playing that characterizes a great artist.
Having demonstrated a sturdy, convincing approach to the classical era, Li followed up with fleet delicacy, finesse of tone and extraordinary imagination in a set of three pictorial Preludes of Debussy ("Mists," "The Eccentric General Lavine" and "Fireworks"). She then turned to Canadian composer Alexina Louie's Memories of an Ancient Garden -- not just an exercise in Canadian nationalism for Li, but a fine example of her insight and competence with the new piano music, including sonorous clusters and reaching into the piano to strum the strings. Li was clearly as at home with the new piano techniques as with the traditional demands of Haydn and Debussy.
As proof that she can also be a grand virtuoso of the old school, Ang closed with the shameless showiness of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12, delivered with absolute brilliance and confidence. Her application indicates a huge repertoire already under control: Expect to hear more from this young genius in years ahead -- and, hopefully, at the Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth in May.
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То же о прослушиваниях 13-го февраля:
22-year-old makes strong case with risky program
NEW YORK - An audition program devoting four minutes to a single Scarlatti sonata and 35 minutes to Brahms' Sonata No. 3 is, by any standard, risky. The delicacies of Scarlatti, conceived for the small 18th-century Spanish harpsichord, can sometimes translate awkwardly to the modern concert grand piano. And the broad, ambitious structures of Brahms' youthful Sonata No. 3 are the territory of the mature artist -- not a 20-something virtuoso angling for admission to the Cliburn Competition.
But Taiwanese-born Brian Hsu, 22, tall and, in a dark suit, looking like a business-school graduate interviewing for his first job, used that repertoire to make a strong case for acceptance to the 2005 Cliburn Competition on Sunday afternoon at Caspery Auditorium on the campus of Rockefeller University.
It probably didn't help his nerves that his audition started an hour ahead of schedule: His compatriot, Hsian Tu, who had been scheduled to play at 1 p.m., didn't show up. When it became obvious that Tu wasn't going to appear, Hsu was present and ready to go.
His Scarlatti was brief and bold, highlighted by gloriously rippling scales in the midst of stirring martial momentum. In the Brahms, he demonstrated a breadth of expression and technical ability that more than made up for the absence of modern or classical-era repertoire on his program. The second movement, an Andante molto with a heart-rending melody, was particularly captivating. In spite of the intrusion of a siren during a quiet passage in the fourth movement, Hsu, who has studied with 1981 Cliburn finalist Da Ming Zhu in Taipei and who works with Yoheved Kaplinsky at the Juilliard School of Music, ended the afternoon session looking like a strong contender to advance to the main competition in Fort Worth in May.
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Прослушивания 14-го февраля в Нью-Йорке:
Grace under pressure
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
NEW YORK - One of the most significant tasks facing an auditioner for the Cliburn competition is how to fill 40 minutes while at the same time showing oneself to best advantage and keeping the jury (and audience) interested -- all without exposing any major weakness.
California-born Grace Fong, 25, a student of Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music, showed how to do all that with an exemplary program for her audition Monday afternoon at Caspary Auditorium on the Rockefeller University campus.
Fong's attractive stage presence certainly didn't hurt her cause with the attentive audience of connoisseurs; she provided a splash of unexpected glamour in the dreary February afternoon as she calmly stepped onstage in a simple black gown slightly dramatized with ribbons.
But the program selection in itself was impressively artful and effective. Three short but note-thick pieces by Rachmaninoff began with the dark Moment Musical in E minor, followed by a Prelude in a brighter A-flat major (Opus 23, No.8) and an even brighter Prelude in B-flat major (Opus 23, No. 2). This was no random key sequence; the move from minor to major and then up one full step was clearly designed to keep the audience involved.
Her skills with romantic repertoire well-established at this point, Fong moved into the darker D minor of Handel's Suite No. 3, presenting fine insights into the baroque, including a delightful light touch on the pedal, an occasional deliberate imitation of the light-volumed clavichord and frequent evocation of the lyrical arias of the same composer's beloved oratorio Messiah.
Having touched down convincingly in the romantic and baroque, she moved into the 20th century with British composer Kenneth Leighton's dramatically dissonant Studies for Piano, Opus 56, providing a quick, showy finale for her audition.
Of course, a carefully plotted repertoire counts for nothing if it's not well-played; Fong, fortunately, has the fingers and the imagination to present every phrase compellingly.
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Прослушивания 15-го февраля в Нью-Йорке:
18-year-old Juilliard student electrifies audience
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
NEW YORK - You didn't need a ticket to the opera in New York on Tuesday night. Pianist Joyce Yang, 18, a native of South Korea studying at the Juilliard School, put on an opera without words in her audition for the 2005 Cliburn Competition.
If anything, Yang at first looked almost severe in demeanor as she first stepped onto the stage at Caspary Auditorium at Rockefeller University. But as she started to play J.S. Bach's "Overture in the French Style" (in spite of its title, actually a rather complex multi-movement suite of dances), it became obvious that she possesses, despite her youth, not only an intense involvement in her music but a rare imagination and ability to communicate.
Bach's grandeur, humor and lyricism flowed naturally from her fingers, as did the whimsical brilliance of Rachmaninoff's Etude in E-flat minor, Opus 33, No. 6.
But the real tour de force came with Liszt's Reminiscences de Don Juan, an excruciatingly difficult piano fantasy based on themes from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. With the sense of timing of a great actress, matched by an ability to toss off all of Liszt's considerable technical demands, Yang held the audience on edge and brought it to its feet cheering.
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О прослушиваниях 17-го февраля:
Fine Arts
Cliburn hopefuls provide lots of great classical piano -- for free
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Classical Music Critic
The countdown to the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition continues: Having heard well over 100 ambitious young pianists audition in Europe and New York, the screening jury finally arrives in Fort Worth this week, where they'll hear the final 27.
For old-timers, this phase resembles the Cliburn the way it used to be. The Fort Worth auditions are held in the almost casual setting of Ed Landreth Auditorium, and admission is free. The leadership of the Cliburn wants these auditions to be essentially public performances.
For the connoisseur, the 18 hours of music-making packed into just four days can be an education in the art of the piano. For the novice who wants to know what the fuss is about, it's a great cost-free, low-pressure introduction to classical piano.
Given the quality of this year's field, be assured that many very interesting pianists -- and possibly one of the superstars of the new century -- will play.
Tips for enjoying the Cliburn auditions
Go anytime You don't need a reservation, plenty of seats are usually available, and admission is free. Though you won't be admitted in the middle of an audition, there's a break every 40 minutes, with longer intermissions scattered throughout the sessions.
Left or right If you've never watched a pianist, join the mob on the front lefthand side of the auditorium, where you can see the pianist's hands clearly and get a good sense of the sheer athletic skill that goes into playing classical piano music. But if you're a seasoned fan, you already know that the best sound is on the right side of the auditorium toward the back.
When to clap Audiences at the auditions in Utrecht, Netherlands, and St. Petersburg, Russia, tended to wait till the end of an entire recital to applaud, while those in Lugano, Switzerland, responded with polite applause between each piece played. Expect Fort Worth's warm audiences to applaud enthusiastically at the end of each work -- but please don't upset the auditioner's concentration by clapping between the movements of multimovement work.
The usual suspects Expect to hear plenty of Rachmaninoff and Liszt if you stay long: Those are clearly the favorite choice of auditioners in 2005. Ukrainian-born Dmitri Levkovich will devote his entire audition at 3 p.m. Tuesday to a performance of Rachmaninoff's 13 Preludes, Opus 32. 2001 Cliburn finalist Alexey Koltakov bids for a return to the Cliburn with an all-Liszt program at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
Going deeper If you want to hear unusual repertoire, show up at 4 p.m. Tuesday, when Ukrainian pianist Yuri Blinov will perform his own arrangement of Tchaikovsky's orchestral piece Francesca da Rimini. Or catch Kazakhstan native Sergei Kuznetsoff in the Sonata No. 3 by Nikolai Miaskovsky at 4 p.m. Monday. Hong Kong-born David Fung will present Henri Dutilleux's Chorale et Variations during his audition at 3 p.m. Saturday.
Superwoman If you admire overachievers, don't miss American Jade Simmons, who performs at 2 p.m. Saturday. A graduate of Rice University and first runner-up in the 1999 Miss America Pageant, Simmons hopes to add the Cliburn competition to her already amazing list of accomplishments.
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Сводный отчёт о прослушиваниях в Нью-Йорке:
Notes from New York
The diary: Big Apple stop pits Cliburn vs. Christo
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Thursday, Feb. 10
The city is brimming with anticipation, but, alas, it's not for the American phase of the Cliburn auditions. Christo, the eccentric, enigmatic artist, has New Yorkers wrapped around his finger as they wait for the unfurling of The Gates, his 23-mile, drenched-in-orange public art project that will spread out across Central Park.
Cliburn auditioners would have to settle for second billing. But this is New York, and some of the female auditioners make a statement -- a fashion statement -- with elegant dresses favoring daring necklines and sparkling sequins. Their style adds a touch of flash to the dreary New York winter.
The first day of auditions at Rockefeller University's Caspary Auditorium brings another welcome surprise: a day without Liszt. Jurors have grown weary of the 19th-century virtuoso, a favorite among the competitors. Instead, works by contemporary American composers George Crumb and Frederic Rzewski, 19th-century British composer Samuel Sebastian Wesley and contemporary Armenian composer Aram Babajanian add interest and texture to the long first day.
Friday, Feb. 11
With only an evening session, I jump at the chance to visit the new Museum of Modern Art, just a few blocks west of our Hotel Elysee. All that music won't go away, though: With my ears soaked in piano music from the Cliburn auditions, a glimpse of Picasso brings Stravinsky to mind, and Mondrian's geometry evokes Schoenberg; the monumental stretch of Monet's Water Lilies paintings is Debussy visualized.
Later that night, in Caspary Auditorium, we listen as 2001 competitor Andrew Russo, who caused a sensation four years ago in Fort Worth by reaching inside the piano during a performance of Crumb, plays it a little safer this time with Liszt, Bartok and Debussy.
Saturday, Feb. 12
The competition is really heating up, with a string of high-quality competitors filling the schedule. Nineteen-year-old Chinese-Canadian Ang Li impressively spans three centuries with a program that includes music by contemporary Canadian Alexina Louie. But the day doesn't truly begin until after 10 p.m., when 23-year-old Washington state native Stephen Beus steps onstage, looking very much like a young Van Cliburn. These jurors have heard Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody so many times that they're blue in the face, but Beus brings them to the edges of their seats. His powerful renditions of Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and Barber's Sonata create the sunshine and passion that comes only from a potential medalist.
Sunday, Feb. 13
The 1 p.m. auditioner, Hsiang Tu, is a no-show. Jurors are perturbed, particularly the one who was a reference for Tu on his application. Audience members, unsure what to do, wander out to enjoy a perfect New York day. Juilliard student Brian Hsu amiably agrees to play an hour before his scheduled time.
Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Haydn and Ravel all fall into place with predictability in the evening session; only Chinese pianist Chuan Qin breaks the monotony with Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti's The Devil's Staircase followed, in stark contrast, by one of Messiaen's Meditations on the Infant Jesus.
Monday, Feb. 14-Wednesday, Feb. 16
On a cold and rainy Valentine's Day, Californian and Cleveland Institute student Grace Fong warms our hearts with a beautiful program that ranges from the baroque gentility of Handel to the dramatic dissonance of 20th-century composer Kenneth Leighton. Belarussian Daniel Shleyenkov charms the audience with an eccentric version of Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No. 2, though the jury doesn't look nearly as enthusiastic.
The eccentricities continue into the evening; Chinese-born Houstonian Amy Yang closes -- and characterizes -- the day with breathless, overly intense Schumann and Bach. Meanwhile, outside, it's pouring rain; the auditions have run late; and the cars booked to take the jurors back to their hotel aren't there. I join the jurors on the sidewalk, tired, cold and wet, contemplating this marathon we call the Cliburn competition.
Looking forward to a day off upon arrival in Texas, the jurors learn that Friday will instead be devoted to watching five videotaped auditions, including two from competitors who became ill and one who had visa problems. But on the whole, they are a cheerful bunch, perhaps because the end is in sight.
After four days of live auditions in Fort Worth, beginning Saturday, jurors will embark on the painstaking process of narrowing the field. Arguments will ensue. Sleep will be lost.
But then, when the final 30 are chosen, the competition really begins.
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Отчёт о прослушивании по видеокассетам для несмогших приехать:
Cliburn jurors screen video auditions of 5 pianists
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - The auditions for the 2005 Cliburn competition took on a surreal aspect Friday afternoon -- at Marvin Electronics on South Hulen Street, of all places.
There, the five members of the screening jury, who have heard more than 100 live auditions in concert halls in Europe and New York, huddled inside a small home theater to watch five pianists audition via video recordings.
With the fast-forward feature available, the jurors made quick work of it. (One can't help thinking that they must have wished for such a shortcut many times during the past few weeks.)
In the case of 2001 finalist Xiaohan Wang, who had to cancel his scheduled live audition because of severe abdominal pain, the jurors decided, after listening to just a few phrases of each of his two pieces, that he was still playing at the same high level that took him so far four years ago. Wang played beautifully clear and powerful renditions of Beethoven's Sonata No. 6 in F and Liszt's Sonata in B minor.
Three other Chinese pianists were heard. Sa Chen, 25, attempted to audition in Lugano, Switzerland, but was thwarted by border guards who declared her documents incomplete. (I couldn't help wondering what sort of threat to Swiss national security the petite pianist could have offered.) Pianists Yu Chin and Xing Du had difficulty traveling from mainland China. Jurors methodically listened to essential passages from each.
But the DVD from Russian-born Yevgeny Sudbin, 24, sparked a lively controversy among jurors. Sudbin withdrew from the 2001 Cliburn and has done the same in several other major competitions. He also canceled his live audition in Utrecht, Netherlands, this year for vague reasons. At least one juror suggested that the jury should not even watch his audition tape.
They did watch. And Sudbin's audition was by far the most impressive of the afternoon. His well-produced DVD presented an attractive, polished performer who was equally convincing in Haydn, Brahms and Debussy. It will be interesting to see whether he's invited once again to play in the main competition.
The live auditions resume at 2 p.m. today at Ed Landreth Auditorium at Texas Christian University.
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О начале прослушивании в Форт-Уорте:
Screening jury comes home for final phase of auditions
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - The five members of the Cliburn screening jury, having traveled to the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and New York, finally settled in Fort Worth on Saturday for the final phase of their search for the 30 pianists who will compete in the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
The competition, in May and June, will be in Bass Hall. The Fort Worth auditions, however, are in Ed Landreth Auditorium at Texas Christian University. There, American pianist Jade Simmons, 27, a Miss America runner-up and graduate of Rice University, gave the day a musically poetic opening, beginning with a songlike rendition of Liszt's Sonetto 104 del Petrarca, a work that originated as a vocal setting of a sonnet of 14th-century Italian poet Francesco Petrarch. Problems with details, particularly in the intricate passage-work of the rest of her program, which included Chopin's Scherzo in B minor and Barber's Sonata, limited her chances to advance.
Likewise, 21-year-old Australian pianist David Fung, opened very strongly with a lightning-quick Sonata of Scarlatti as a warm-up for the Chorale and Variations of Henri Dutilleux, an appealingly dissonant and dramatic work from 1947, wisely chosen to show off velocity, volume, stamina and wide range of color and mood. After a promisingly elegant start in Chopin's Ballade in F minor, however, Fung lapsed into an undernourished reading that extended to his next piece, Ravel's La Valse.
The most successful performance came from Italian-born, Texas-based Domenico Cospoti, 29, a graduate of Southern Methodist University who studies with TCU's Tamas Ungar. Codispoti made sense of Czech composer Leos Janacek's emotionally elusive Sonata 1.X.1905, a work inspired by the death of a pro-Czech demonstrator in Brno on Oct. 1, 1905, then continued with an impressively performed set of six of Rachmaninoff's Etudes-Tableaux.
Although the afternoon session opened lyrically, the evening opened dramatically as American Elizabeth Schumann, 23, attacked the left-hand-only introduction of John Corigliano's Etude Fantasy. Schumann, who was accepted into the 2001 Cliburn competition but withdrew, completed her audition with a delicate Haydn Sonata in E Major (Hob. XVI:31) and a triptych of Schubert songs transcribed by Lizst.
Slovenian Jan Bratoz, 27, took a subtle approach, with an introspective program of Bach, Bartok and contemporary Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti. Ukrainian Anna Polusmiak, 21, came from an opposite direction with two of the toughest challenges in the piano repertoire, Beethoven's Op. 111 and Stravinsky's Petrouschka, succeeding in the former but faltering in the latter.
The final performer, Heidi Hau, had yet to perform at press time.
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О том же дне прослушиваний: Финалистка конкурса "Мисс Америка" участвует в прослушиваниях:
Pianist makes herself at home
FORT WORTH - Jade Simmons once stood on the runway as first runner-up to Miss America, and she has been a spokeswoman for the Labor Department's Youth Opportunity Movement.
But taking the stage Saturday at Texas Christian University to kick off local screening recitals for the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition felt a little like coming home.
"I remember seeing the Van Cliburn on television when I was young and I didn't know what it was but I knew that I wanted to do that," Simmons said after her performance. "I expected to have a lot of nerves. But when I sat down, I felt like this is where I was supposed to be."
After hearing more than 100 pianists in Europe and New York, the Van Cliburn screening jury is listening to the final 27 auditions at TCU's Ed Landreth Auditorium.
The auditions, being held through Tuesday, are free.
On March 1, the Van Cliburn Foundation will announce the 30 pianists chosen for this year's competition. After more than two weeks of performances, starting May 20 at Bass Performance Hall, the winners will be announced June 5.
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О прослушиваниях 20-го февраля в Форт-Уорте:
Weeding through the competitors
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - The 2005 Cliburn International Piano Competition screening jury moved into the home stretch Sunday.
Three ambitious young pianists made their bids in the afternoon session at Ed Landreth Auditorium on the Texas Christian University campus, producing a few interesting moments -- but, alas, no one likely to advance in this highly competitive field.
Jung-Yang Shin, 30, a Canadian-born South Korean currently studying at Rice University made an appealing entry with Rachmaninoff's flashy solo piano arrangements of some of J.S. Bach's music for violin, but spoiled it with a heavy foot on the pedal and an overly aggressive use of rubato. She progressed through works of Mozart, Chopin and Szymanowski but never quite recovered.
French Canadian David Jalbert, 27, likewise entered impressively with a vigorous reading of American composer John Corigliano's Etude Fantasy before lapsing, inexplicably, into bashful, colorless renditions of Faure and J.S. Bach.
TCU student Juan Carlos Gutierrez-Cruz, 29, impressed with Ginastera's Danzas Argentinas. Unfortunately, he offered only shy versions of Liszt's La Valee d'Obermann and Schubert's Sonata in A minor.
In the evening session, 2001 Cliburn finalist Alexey Koltakov, 26, made a compelling bid to return with well-shaped, dramatic performances of Liszt's Sonata in B Minor and Horwitz's version of Liszt's piano solo arrangement of Danse Macabre. Chinese-born Yang Shen, 27, of California followed, ranging convincingly across classical, romantic and impressionistic repertoires of Clementi, Scriabin and Debussy. However, the razor-sharp precision of Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody eluded her.
Andrey Ponochevny, 28, a Belarusian studying at TCU, drowned music of Brahms and Liszt in Slavic passion -- but was on target for Scriabin's Sonata No. 4.
A second rendition of Scriabin's sonata closed the evening in a meticulously detailed performance by Vakhtang Kodanashvili, 27, a student of Alexander Toradze at Indiana University-South Bend.
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О прослушиваниях 21-го февраля в Форт-Уорте:
Key performers
For jury, it's an unusual mix
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Classical Music Critic
FORT WORTH - Monday's auditions for the 2005 Cliburn Competition produced an odd mixture of amazing high points and puzzling lows -- sometimes in the same audition.
The listening ends today for the screening jury, which has heard more than 120 pianists in Europe and the United States. On Wednesday it will pick 30 to return in May and June.
Minsoo Sohn, a 28-year-old Korean, presented one of the finest performances of Schubert I've heard, opening his audition with that composer's profoundly melodic Sonata in A minor (D. 537). He was equally impressive in the piano solo transcription of Rachmaninoff's song Lilacs. But his ventures into the bolder virtuoso repertoire -- Horowitz's Carmen variations and Stravinsky's Petrouchka -- were riddled with missed notes.
Korean Yoon-Soo Lee, 26, was winningly serene in Mozart's Sonata in C (K. 330) but followed with emotionally malnourished takes on Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie and Ravel's La Valse.
Russian Sergei Kuznetsoff, 26, erred in the opposite direction with a brutally tense rendition of Schumann's Intermezzos, Opus 4. But his performance of the rarely heard Sonata No. 3 in C minor by 20th-century Russian romantic Nikolai Miaskovsky was noisily compelling and dramatic, as was his flashy closing item, Prokofiev's Toccata.
Russian Tatiana Larionova, 25, opened the evening session with an audition highlighted by the brilliant dissonance of Bartok's Etude No. 2. The energetic virtuosity of Georgian Edisher Savitski, 28, overwhelmed the poetry in Schumann's Symphonic Etudes but was perfect for Scriabin's ecstatic Sonata No. 7.
Italian Valeria Vetruccio, 29, an Italian studying at Southern Methodist University, was out of her depth, failing to capture the necessary energy in the music of Liszt and Ravel, or the lyric expressiveness in works by Rachmaninoff and Chopin.
American Andrew Brownell, 26, had his music well-controlled technically but turned into an emotional bulldozer as he plowed through works of Messiaen and Bach before settling more comfortably into Chopin's Scherzo No. 4 in E.
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Прослушивания 22-го февраля в Форт-Уорте:
Screening auditions end nicely
By Wayne Lee Gay
Star-Telegram Classical Music Critic
FORT WORTH - After hearing nearly 140 live auditions on two continents, the five-member Cliburn Competition screening jury heard the final six auditioners Tuesday in the Ed Landreth Auditorium at TCU.
Two of the most interesting performers of the day were TCU graduates, both of whom participated in the 2001 Cliburn Competition. Japanese-born Tadashi Imai, 29, opened the day with his characterically impressive combination of intellect and emotion in works of Berg, Chopin and Debussy. Belarussian Yuri Blinov, 29, made one of the strongest showings of the entire auditions with an all-Russian recital that closed with his own piano solo transcription of Tchaikovsky's orchestral tone poem Francesca da Rimini.
Ukrainian-born Canadian Dmitri Levkovich, 25, devoted his entire audition to Rachmaninoff's Thirteen Preludes, Opus 32, succeeding admirably in showing off the huge expressive and technical range this set requires.
Lithuanian Andrius Zlabys, 27, was convincingly assertive in J.S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, but smothered Brahms' Intermezzo in A from Opus 118 and Beethoven's "Tempest" Sonata in intensity. Chinese-born American Ning An, 28, who teaches at Lee College in Tennessee, displayed a well-projected singing tone in works of Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Liszt. Moldavian Marianna Prjevalskaya, 22, allowed her exploration of works of Chopin and Rachmaninoff to bog down in indulgent expression.
The jurors will select 30 competitors to perform at the competition at Bass Performance Hall in May and June; their selection will be announced Tuesday.
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