From
Twenty-Nine to Twelve: Top Young Pianists Advance to the Semifinal
Round of the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano
Competition
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Laura Grant, Grant Communications, 917.359.7319
Sevan Melikyan, Director of Marketing, 682.564.5613
FORT
WORTH, TEXAS, MAY 26, 2009--John Giordano, chairman of the
jury for the Cliburn 2009, announced the twelve young pianists
advancing to the Semifinal Round from the stage of the Nancy Lee
and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall. The twelve competitors, in
alphabetical order,with their semifinal repertoire are:
Mr. Evgeni Bozhanov, Bulgaria, 25
Mr. Ran Dank, Israel, 27
Mr. Alessandro Deljavan, Italy, 22
Ms. Kyu Yeon Kim, South Korea, 23
Mr. Eduard Kunz, Russia, 28
Ms. Andrea Lam, Australia, 27
Mr. Michail Lifits, Germany, 26
Ms. Yeol Eum Son, South Korea, 23
Mr. Nobuyuki Tsujii, Japan, 20
Ms. Mariangela Vacatello, Italy, 27
Ms. Di Wu, China, 24
Mr. Haochen Zhang, China, 19
Twenty-nine pianists
representing fourteen countries have performed in the Thirteenth
Van Cliburn International Piano Competition's Preliminary Round.
Held May 22 through May 26, this initial stage consisted of five
days and almost thirty hours of solo piano recitals before an
enthusiastic in-house audience at Bass Performance Hall, as well as
a worldwide audience watching via live webcast.
The pianists performed a
variety of works by composers ranging from Albeniz, Bach, and
Boulez, to Carter, Debussy, and Ginastera, as well as Liszt, Haydn,
Mozart, and Schumann.
Following the last
Preliminary Round performance by Mayumi Sakamoto from Japan
(competitors drew their
performance order at the Gala Opening Dinner on May 20), marks by
members of the internationally revered eleven-member jury were
tallied. The voting procedure used was designed by John MacBain,
Ph.D., who is both a mathematician and musician (violinist). It was
adopted by the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for the
Eleventh Competition in 2001. Involving a sophisticated computer
software program that calculates results based on numerical scores,
this system had been previously designed for and used successfully
by the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and later,
the Cleveland International Piano Competition and the International
Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, produced by the Van
Cliburn Foundation.
During the Semifinal Round, each pianist will perform a
sixty-minute solo recital of repertoire of his/her choice, along
with one selected contemporary work from the winning compositions
of the third American Composers Invitational. The 2009 winning
compositions are White Lies for Lomax (Mason Bates); Turning (Derek
Bermel); Suite for Piano (Daron Hagen) and Improvisation &
Fugue (John Musto). Mr. Bates' work, White Lies for Lomax, will be
performed by the greatest number of semifinalists (seven out of the
twelve advancing competitors), and he will receive the $5,000 grand
prize.
Each competitor will also perform one of the designated piano
quintets in a separate concert with the Takács Quartet:
Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34
Schumann Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44
Dvořák Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81
Franck Piano Quintet in F minor
The six pianists advancing to the Final Round will be
announced by Maestro Giordano following the evening performance on
May 31. They will each perform two concerti of their choice with
the acclaimed Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under the direction of
renowned American conductor James Conlon. Each finalist will also
present a separate fifty-minute solo recital of works not performed
by him/her in the preceding Preliminary and Semifinal Rounds. The
Final Round takes place June 3-7.
Winners of the Cliburn 2009 receive an unparalleled
opportunity to perform throughout the United States. The six
finalists share three years of concert tours, including more than
300 engagements coordinated by the Van Cliburn Foundation over the
three years following the competition. Fees received by the Cliburn
winners from U.S. engagements total in excess of $1,000,000.
The gold medalist will have additional concert engagements in
Europe and Asia, in conjunction with IMG Artists, Europe. During
the 2009-2010 season, the gold medalist has been invited to perform
at prestigious music festivals in Germany, Poland, and the United
States, and will be a featured soloist with Orchestra Europa in
London, as well as with ten U.S. orchestras, including the
Colorado, Santa Fe, and Utah Symphony Orchestras. (See all prizes
and awards for Cliburn 2009.)
Jurors for the Thirteenth Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition are:
Marcello Abbado, former director
of the Milan Conservatory and founder of the Symphonic Orchestra
Verdi in Milan
Dmitri Alexeev, internationally acclaimed pianist and the
first Russian artist to become the first-prize winner of the Leeds
International Piano Competition (1975)
Michel Beroff, pianist and
faculty member of the Paris Conservatoire, he is credited with more
than fifty recordings and is establishing a career as a
conductor
Hung-Kuan Chen, chairman of the
Shanghai Conservatory piano department and director of its
International Piano Academy, is a gold medal winner of both the
Arthur Rubinstein and Busoni Competitions and was awarded an Avery
Fisher Career Grant in 1991
Richard Dyer, writer, lecturer,
former chief music critic for the Boston Globe for thirty-three
years, and two-time recipient of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for
distinguished music criticism
John
Giordano, Chairman*, jury chairman for the Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition since 1973, former music director
of the Fort Worth Symphony and Chamber Orchestras for twenty-seven
years, music director of the Corpus Christi Symphony
Orchestra
Joseph Kalichstein, the first
chamber music adviser to the Kennedy Center and a founding member
of the acclaimed Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Yoheved Kaplinsky, chair of the
piano department at the Juilliard School in New York, as well as
professor of piano at Texas Christian University in Fort
Worth
Jürgen Meyer-Josten, former head
of music of Bavarian Radio in Munich for more than two decades, and
director of the International Music Competition of the Broadcasting
Companies of Germany in Munich since 1967
Menahem Pressler, pianist and
founder of the Beaux Arts Trio
Tadeusz Strugala, prominent
Polish conductor, professor at the Krakow Music Academy, and guest
conductor of orchestras in Warsaw, Prague, and Vienna
ExxonMobil is the Principal Corporate Sponsor of the Van
Cliburn Foundation. American Airlines, Bank of America, City of
Fort Worth, J.P.Morgan, Star-Telegram, Steinway & Sons, and XTO
Energy Inc. are Official Corporate Sponsors, and RadioShack
Corporation is the Cliburn's Corporate Sponsor. Official Sponsors
are the Amon G. Carter Foundation, Arts Council of Fort Worth and
Tarrant County, Beaumont Foundation of America, the Burnett
Foundation, the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, and the T. Boone
Pickens Foundation. Star-Telegram is the principal media partner
and WRR 101.1 FM is the official radio station of Cliburn
Concerts.
Contact:
Laura Grant 917.359.7319; Laura@Grant-Communications.com
