The chair of the judges at the 2017 Van Cliburn Competition has responded to some of the criticism aired today in an email to Slipped Disc:
Here are three things everyone needs to understand.
The Cliburn is judged in its entirety, not just on the concerto. We listed to all 30 pianists, eliminate 10 and so on. All voting is done anonymously and we are not allowed to speak about the competetors. There is no point system, simply a yes or no as far as advancement. This is true for all rounds and is the only fair way to avoid controversies that have plagued many competitions.
During the the three solo recitals we heard many superb performances of both standard and unusual repertoire. Very few of the audience or medici viewers take the time to go through all of this and it is exhausting for both pianists and the jury panel.
As much as I would love to have some off the beaten track concerti, fiscal responsibility and rehearsal time comes into play. Each contestant has only 50 minutes plus the general rehearsal to get through their works. I met with each for 20 minutes prior to the first rehearsal. If one of the commentators on this blog wish to contribute about 400 thousand dollars for extra rehearsals, please contact the Cliburn. It is also important to remember that we do not know until the announcement of the finalists who will be playing which concerto, so that creates another set of problems.
I was proud to be head of an incredible group of pianists, each of whom brought great experience to the competition. Although I have reservations about contests in music, there is no question that the process was fair and unimpeachable. And rest assured, some of these pianists are about to have terrific careers, based on what we heard over the course of almost three weeks.
Leonard Slatkin
The Spaniard Octavio Más-Arocas has been named music director of the Mansfield Symphony Orchestra in Ohio.
Más-Arocas, a Kurt Masur protege, is director of orchestral studies and associate professor of conducting at the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music.
In Virginia, Daniel W. Boothe will be music director of Symphonicity, the Symphony Orchestra of Virginia Beach.
The death is reported of the Liverpool composer Malcolm Lipkin.
Shocked by the loss of his teacher, Matyas Seiber, in a 1960 car accident, Lipkin lost some of his early momentum and settled into a personal byway of the English pastoral style.
He wrote three symphonies and received several BBC commissions.
You couldn’t make it up…
New immigration rules, apparently.
Saber Xie, 26, an accomplished pianist from China who lives in NZ on a skilled worker’s visa, has been told she must leave – even though she is expecting a baby with a New Zealand father.
Simple humanity seems to have got lost in transition.
Mark Veregge was stopped by police last month and will be brought to court on June 30.
In addition to lecturing at Stanford’s department of music, he is principal percussionist with the California Symphony and personnel manager for the Opera San Jose.
After he had supper with my wife, Judith, and me, following a concert with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Swansea, we invited Frémaux to stay the night. He preferred, however, to drive up on to the Gower peninsula and spend the night in his camper van.
On another occasion, the then head of music for BBC Wales emerged from the Llandaff studios following a concert to be met by the smell of chips being cooked. It turned out to be Frémaux in his camper van.
It is hard to remember a competition so devoid of character and incident as the Van Cliburn, which ended last night.
Deep in the heart of Texas, a group of 20 pianists were whittled down by an international jury to six blameless finalists, none of whom set the imagination roaring or the blood racing.
In the absence of colourful personalities, competitions require a dash of controversy. That, too, was missing.
Looking back, this has been the pattern in the last few Cliburn competitions. The process has been too civilised to produce a barn-storming winner and the judges too timid in the early stages to back a rank outsider.
This average mentality does not augur well for the event. We are hearing noises of discontent from local donors and of disaffection from the music business. Dull contests have no future.
No disrespect to this year’s winners, but the Van Cliburn competition urgently requires a reboot.
After a competition unmarked by incident and widely unreported, the Van Cliburn winner, announced last night, was Yekwon Sunwoo, 28, of South Korea.
Second and third were Americans – Kenneth Broberg, 23, and Daniel Hsu, 19.
The audience award, in which 20,000 website visitors and medici.tv watchers had a right to vote, was won by the only woman in the finals, Rachel Cheung.
The jury chair, Leonard Slatkin, is expected to share his personal impressions with us shortly.
