Winning the first Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow
at the height of the Cold War in 1958, brought Van Cliburn
unprecedented celebrity for an American concert pianist. Cliburn's
international victory instilled a fresh sense of artistic pride in
many Americans, while opening the door to a new era of cultural
relations between East and West. The Van Cliburn International
Piano Competition was established shortly thereafter to perpetuate
Van Cliburn's unique legacy of demonstrating how classical music,
in the hands of a master, has the appeal to reach across all
borders.
At a dinner banquet in November 1958, Dr. Irl Allison, founder
of the National Guild of Piano Teachers, passed a note to Grace
Ward Lankford, co-founder of the Fort Worth Piano Teachers Forum.
The note read, "Hold onto your seat, I have a startling
announcement!" Standing before a crowd of 500, including Van
Cliburn and his mother, Rildia Bee O'Bryan Cliburn, Dr. Allison
announced his intention to offer a $10,000 first prize to be
awarded by an international piano competition named in Cliburn's
honor. The idea caught everyone (especially Van Cliburn) by
surprise, and immediately ignited the imagination and enthusiasm of
music lovers and civic leaders throughout Fort Worth.
A small corps of volunteers began to raise funds,
type labels, and lick envelopes as Ms. Lankford enlisted the
support of an astonishing range of politicians,
internationally-renowned composers, conductors, musicians, business
leaders, and professional educators, in pursuit of what must have
seemed an impossible goal: to create a world-class international
piano competition in a city still affectionately known as
"Cowtown." By 1961, the pieces were falling into place, and the Van
Cliburn Foundation was officially chartered.
First held in 1962, the quadrennial Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition quickly established itself
as an event that inspires and engages the local community, while
gracing the international stage. The Cliburn Competition is one of
the few musical events in the world to arrange for competitors to
stay with host families, often resulting in close, long-term
relationships: this has resulted in southern hospitality becoming a
singular trademark of the Cliburn Competition.
From its inception, it has been the mission of the Van Cliburn
Foundation to identify and sustain the young talents of classical
music. In addition to receiving significant cash prizes-the first
prize cash award has been raised to $50,000 for the 2013
Competition-the winners of each competition are awarded three years
of career management and artist services, including the booking of
national tours for all six finalists and international engagements
for the gold medalist, in conjunction with IMG Artists. The six
2009 finalists have travelled the globe, collectively performing
over 400 engagements during the three years following the
Competition.
The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is the most
visible expression of the Foundation's commitment to
classical music, and through the support of major corporations,
foundations, and sponsors, significant media projects have been
produced to further the Cliburn's scope and reach. These include
the national and international distribution of CDs and DVDs, and
the broadcast of prizewinning performances on syndicated radio
programs across the country. Additionally, the Foundation has
produced nine documentaries that have aired nationally on PBS since
the 1977 Competition and have garnered acclaim and numerous awards,
including a Primetime Emmy® (1989) and a Peabody Award
(2001). A Surprise in Texas, the Peter Rosen film
chronicling the 2009 Competition, was enthusiastically received at
U.S. film festivals, then reached a potential audience of over 105
million households with its prime time PBS airing on September 1,
2010. The film won the 2011 ECHO Klassik Award for Best Music DVD
Recording of the Year (Documentation).
In 1997, the Cliburn began utilizing sophisticated Internet
resources to stream the competition live online, extending its
outreach to every corner of the globe. In 2009, web viewers enjoyed
real-time access to Competition performances and awards ceremonies
in their entirety, in addition to hours of educational and cultural
content. Over 11 hours of live footage was streamed every day for
the 17 days of the Competition, with 2,857,573 stream delivered to
visitors from 157 countries/territories with an average visitor
duration of over 48 minutes.
Over the past four decades, the Cliburn Competition has involved
hundreds of great musicians, music professionals, and dedicated
individuals in its various activities. Its juries have included
Jorge Bolet, Philippe Entremont, Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher,
Malcolm Frager, Alberto Ginastera, Howard Hanson, Nicole
Henriot-Schweitzer, Lili Kraus, Alicia de Larrocha, Dame Moura
Lympany, Nikita Magaloff, Gerald Moore, John Ogdon, Cecile Ousset,
Gyorgy Sandor, Harold Schonberg, Maxim Shostakovich, Soulima
Stravinsky, Walter Susskind, Alexis Weissenberg, and Earl Wild.
Among the conductors who have shared the stage with competitors
during the final round of the Competition are Leon Fleisher, John
Giordano, Milton Katims, Ezra Rachlin, Walter Susskind, Stanislaw
Skrowaczewski, and Jerzy Semkow. Maestro James Conlon conducted the
final rounds of the Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth
Competitions, and Maestro Leonard Slatkin will conduct the final
round of the Fourteenth Competition in 2013. Since the Fourth
Competition in 1973, John Giordano has been chairman of the
jury.
