April 22, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Laura Grant, Grant Communications,
978.208.0552
Sevan
Melikyan, Director of Marketing, 817.738.6536
THIRTEENTH VAN CLIBURN INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION TO BE
WEBCAST GLOBALLY
Sign up at www.cliburn.tv and watch free.
FORT WORTH, TEXAS, April 22, 2009--This spring, Cliburn
enthusiasts around the world will be able to view the 2009
Competition live online from May 22 to June 7. Always at the
forefront of web-based technology, the Cliburn has streamed its
competition online since 2001, when only audio was available. The
2005 Competition saw an upgraded video player, and in 2009, the
Foundation will offer even more extensive functionality with
Microsoft's cutting-edge Silverlight 2.0 technology.
The highly sophisticated interface allows the Cliburn to
promote all thirty competitors, and enables those who cannot travel
to Texas to follow the competition in real time. Available at
www.cliburn.tv, the webcast was built with the same technology used
for the recent Olympics, and will run eleven hours per day.
Performances will be streamed live and then archived and available
for "on-demand" viewing, allowing audiences from different time
zones to view portions of the competition they would otherwise
miss.
Pianist and arts advocate Jade Simmons will host the webcast
for the duration of the competition. Along with occasional co-host
Steve Cumming, radio broadcaster and the announcer for the
competition, she will conduct live interviews and and introduce all
concerts and special features.
Behind-the-scenes coverage will bring audiences closer than
ever to competitors. Viewers will have the opportunity to access
backstage locations, as well as experience never-before-seen live
coverage of rehearsals with Maestro James Conlon and the Takács
Quartet.
Live coverage of the four symposia presented during the
competition finals will also be available online. (For more details
on the symposia, whose speakers include diplomats, members of the
press, and competition jurors, please visit the Cliburn website.)
During morning and evening session breaks, past competition
PBS documentaries from 1981 to 2005 will be streamed.
The webcast's new interactive features will include an "email
the competitor" option, two blogs, video portraits of all pianists,
and additional educational materials. An online audience vote,
popular in 2005, will be featured again this year. Held during each
round of the competition, the audience vote allows viewers to weigh
their opinions against the jury's. Online voting will not have an
influence on the outcome of each round, but the audience favorites
will be recognized during the Awards Ceremony on June
7.
Another innovative feature will be the option to view program
commentary, which will appear from time to time of the bottom of
the screen, offering pointers and alerting the viewer what to
listen for while each piece is being played.
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 is the Cliburn's
Corporate Sponsor. Official Sponsors are the Amon G. Carter
Foundation, Arts Council of Fort Worth and Tarrant County, the
Burnett Foundation, Beaumont Foundation of America, 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.
JADE SIMMONS
Known for her versatility and charisma both on and off the
stage, pianist Jade Simmons possesses artistry, passion, and
creativity, infusing all of her diverse projects with a unique
brand of communicative power. Ms. Simmons tours extensively with
her program Kandinsky and Scriabin: Hearing Color, Seeing Sound,
focusing on links between the creative arts; and The Rhythm
Project, an exploration of percussive piano playing. A strong
dedication to arts in education inspired Ms. Simmons to create
Mozart on the Move, a program that found great success in the
Houston public school system. In spring 2007, she performed with
the Van Cliburn Foundation's Musical Awakenings program, visiting
twenty schools throughout Fort Worth and North Texas in a program
titled Virtuosity.
Ms. Simmons also serves as an advocate for America's youth,
addressing groups across the country on sensitive issues such as
suicide prevention and youth violence. She is the founder of the
national school program Where Do You Stand?!--a series of
interactive presentations on topics from culture to politics--which
has led to numerous appearances on radio and
television.
Ms. Simmons is a native of Charleston, South Carolina. As an
undergraduate at Northwestern University, she co-founded the
popular percussion and dance ensemble Boomshaka! She was Miss
Illinois and first runner up at the 2000 Miss America Pageant,
where she performed Chopin's Etude in c-sharp minor, Op. 10, No. 4
before a live television audience of millions. Ms. Simmons holds a
master's degree from Rice University, where she studied with Jon
Kimura Parker, and has also studied at the Foundation Bell' Arte in
Brussels. She designs her own concert attire and plans to expand
her design efforts into an extended commercial line called Zhedya
(Jade in Russian).
STEVE CUMMING
Steve Cumming has been in broadcasting since 1967. A native of
Cleveland, Ohio, he came to North Texas in 1985 from Cleveland's
classical music station, WCLV. That year, he began a five-year
stint as the morning drive host at WRR Classical 101.1
FM.
In 1990, Mr. Cumming took a news anchor position with ABC
Radio Networks, and in 1995, moved to the evening drive anchor
position at WBAP. During his eight-and-a-half-year tenure there, he
received several Edward R. Murrow awards, several "Katie" awards
from the Press Club of Dallas, and the DuPont/Columbia School of
Journalism Silver Baton. He returned to WRR for a year in 2004, and
today serves as station manager for North Texas Radio for the Blind
(NTRB), a sub-carrier station that broadcasts a news/literature
format targeted at the visually and reading impaired.
Mr. Cumming has sung with the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and
has been a member of the Dallas Symphony Chorus since 1987. As a
member of these two groups, he has sung in Carnegie Hall nine
times.
The 2009 Cliburn Competition will mark the fifth time that Mr.
Cumming has served as competition announcer. He has also been the
announcer for the Van Cliburn Foundation's International Piano
Competition for Outstanding Amateurs since its inception in
1999.
CLIBURN 2009
The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, held for the
thirteenth time this May 22-June 7, 2009, at Bass Performance Hall
in Fort Worth, Texas, will feature thirty pianists from fourteen
countries. The competition consists of three rounds: each artist
will perform a fifty-minute program over five days and ten sessions
in the Preliminary Round, May 22-May 26. Twelve musicians will
progress to the Semifinal Round, May 28-31, where in addition to
sixty-minute recitals, audiences will hear the musicians perform in
piano quintets with one of today's preeminent ensembles, the Takács
Quartet, over a four-day, eight-session round of chamber music and
recital programs. The semifinals' hour-long recitals will also
include each competitor's choice of one new work selected from a
group of finalists in the Cliburn's third American Composers
Invitational. Just six of these young artists will advance to the
Final Round, June 3-7, where they will perform two concerti
with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, led by world-renowned
conductor Maestro James Conlon, as well as play an additional
fifty-minute recital. The winners will be announced at the Awards
Ceremony on the evening of June 7, 2009.
For more information on the Thirteenth Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition, please visit www.cliburn.org. To
sign up to view the free global webcast on your computer, please
visit www.cliburn.tv.
