Result: No thrills or spills at Queen Elisabeth finals
mainThe Brussels competition was won early this morning by Stella Chen, 26, a pupil of Itzhak Perlman and Miriam Fried who studied psychology at Harvard. She takes home 25,000 Euros and gets to play the Huggins Strad for the next four years.
Second prize and 20k went to Timothy Chooi , 25, of Canada.
Third: Stephen Kim (USA, 23)
Fourth: Shannon Lee (Canada – USA, 26)
Fifth: Júlia Pusker (Hungary, 27)
Sixth: Ioana Cristina Goicea (Romania – Germany, 26)
The audience prize went to Sylvia Huang, a violinist in the Cincertgebouw Orchestra and the only Belgian finalist.
There was a thrill: during the last of the 6 finals, the lights went out when Shannon Lee was playing her Tchaïkovsky concerto and she (and the orchestra) went bravely on, without cellphones lights!
You forgot Weilerstein as Stella’s teacher.
She currently studies with Li Lin and Catherine Cho at The Juilliard School
Now let her study with Simon Standage, or another first- class period violinist. She already has a Strad – put some gut strings on it and she’s all set.
This guy can’t report results of a single competition without a snarky comment. Shouldn’t you be happy we finally have a winner with no connection to a single jury member?
It’s not enough for music to be interesting)
if the winner had been German, I’m certain Norman would have found some evidence of foul play….
Should we laugh or what?
Means absolutely nothing except to the “winners ” who
now join dozens upon dozens of other winners sawing away at the same old works hoping for a piece($) of the pie
all sounding alike….
Right on the money! Bravo Wladek!
I say it’s about time someone established a competition to commemorate Eugene Fodor… seeing as getting around on the fingerboard is more important than being a musical artist–no knock on Ms. Chen, except for the fact that the Tchaikovsky concerto is (largely) more about getting around on the fingerboard than it is about meaningful musical utterances.
C’mon, folks! The Tchaik. concerto is a tone picture of a peasant fair, complete with drunken dancing–read the reception history! My intuition is that Leopold Auer did not find it too difficult to play; perhaps he found it pointless and vulgar.
Well, at least we have now learned how someone comes in sixth in a major competition–just do a magnificent job playing one of the two most musically significant concertos of the 20th-c. (the other being Elgar’s).
jm
Tchaikovsky is one of those composers I hope I never have to hear again. What’s wrong with Bach or Mozart concertos for competitions? The orchestras might be delighted at the change – and the orchestras wouldn’t have to be as large -if you do it right.Now, what record company gives her a contract and hopes for the best?
Bach was one of the imposed piece for the first round and Mozart for the semi-final.
The term for the performers is “a dime a dozen”.
An appropriate German term for the hackneyed-to- death standard repertoire pieces is “ausgelutscht” (sucked dry).
you are too kind in your assessment …..
One senses from their performances they are already in the “dime a dozen” dust bin.
Another Julliard winner. And yes, Kaplinsky is the one to fault with this and the school’s spelling.
In fact, the top 3 have studied at the Juilliard School.
What’s NL going to do? It’s gotta be because of Kaplinsky!
This may come as a surprise, but there are better music schools than Juilliard. Boston, for example, is full of them.
Huang is an old Belgian name, for your information.
Sylvia Huang’s mother is 100% Belgian. Sylvia played beautifully, at 25 she is already a member of the Concertgebauw orchestra in Amsterdam.
(Maybe it was not a good thing for her to be Belgian in this case ;-)).
Anyway, the 12 finalists were fine musicians and it was a great pleasure to listen to them. Bravi tutti!