Zlatomir Fung, 20, was tonight declared winner of the Tchaikovsky cello competition.
Second was the Colombian Santiago Cañón Valencia.
Third was the Russian Anastasia Kobekina.
The jury was chaired by Carnegie Hall’s Clive Gillinson.
Fung, US-born of Bulgarian and Chinese parents, studies at Juilliard with Richard Aaron and Timothy Eddy. His maternal grandparents studied in Russia.
Professor Boris Kushnir’s pupil Sergei Dogadin won first prize in the violin section of the Tchaikovsky Competition, as he has done in every contest where his teacher was on the jury.
Second was Marc Bouchkov, third was the Korean Donghyun Kim.
The jury was chaired by Verbier chief Martin Engstroem.
The contest has lost any semblance of credibility.
Alexandre Kantorow, 22, has been declared winner of the major prize of the Tchaikovsky Competition. He has a Russian teacher, Rena Shereshevskaya, and he impressed the audience above all others, especially in the Tchaikovsky second concerto.
UPDATE: What we learned about the Russians at Tchaikovsky 2019.
Joint second were the Russian Dmitry Shishkin and the Japanese Mao Fujita.
Joint third were the Russians Melnikov and Emilyanov and the American Kenneth Broberg.
Fourth was the Chinese An Tianxu, whose performance was disabled by an administrative screw-up that made the process a laughing-stock. He was awarded an unscheduled special prize ‘for courage and restraint’.
The contest’s credibility was undermined by the early elimination of the Russian favourite Alexander Malofeev on questionable grounds. The incident with An Tianxu cast further doubt on the process and the final sharing of prizes reflects no credit on the weak chairman, Denis Matsuev.
The contest appears to be reverting to the bad old days of Soviet judge-rigging.
POSTCRIPT: This post was written within minutes of the announcement. We have made some morning-after adjustments to add balance and reflection to the results.
This was the soloist’s response to the Russian announcement in the calamity that ruined his chances in the piano final. An Tianxu didn’t realise that Rachmaninov came first. The conductor’s role remains enigmatic.
The whole saga is a massive fuckup. Original story here.
If the video won’t show where you are, you can watch it here.
The rent-boy lover of a Scottish musician in Argentina was jailed ‘in perpetuity’ today for bashing his head in with a dumbbell.
Alan Torres was convicted by a jury of the murder of Finlay Ferguson, 60, a gentle musician who led a youth orchestra in Cordoba. Torres will serve at least 50 years in jail.
More here.
The board of the orchestra that has locked out its musicians has responded to an international outcry with its first concession:
Baltimore, MD Thursday, June 27, 2019 – The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra today announced that, through generous contributions from members of the BSO Board of Directors and other loyal donors from our Baltimore and Montgomery County communities, medical and dental benefits will be provided for BSO musicians throughout the lockout during the months of July and August 2019.
“The Board of Directors and management greatly appreciate and value the members of our orchestra. This has been an extraordinarily difficult time for the Baltimore Symphony, and we are glad to continue providing health insurance for our musicians during the ongoing negotiations this summer as we work to reach agreement on a new contract,” stated BSO President and CEO Peter Kjome. “We are deeply grateful to members of the Board and other friends of the BSO for supporting this important effort.”
Donors have provided the required resources to continue the benefits, which were due to end on June 30, 2019. Life insurance benefits had already been extended through this period. The BSO is working with its Long-term disability insurance provider in an attempt to extend coverage during the lockout, and musicians already on Long-term disability will continue to receive those benefits.
Message received:
For the second year running, UK record label Drama Musica and its partner project DONNE, Women in Music examined the programmes presented by 15 major orchestras worldwide in their 2019-2020 season to identify the presence of women composers in concerts.
Results show that classical music is still a man’s world: only 3.6% of the total pieces to be performed this season were composed by women. Although there has been an increase – last year only 2.3% of the pieces were written by women – we are still quite far from reaching equality.
Soprano Gabriella Di Laccio, founder and curator of DONNE, Women in Music, says: ‘It is very difficult to find excuses for not having works by women composers present in every concert. There are thousands of music scores now widely available and the quality of the music is unquestionable. As artists, I truly believe we should always try to cultivate curiosity in our audiences, to open their eyes to a much richer and diverse musical world. It is possible and it is an incredibly enriching artistic experience for everyone. Plus, we will be supporting diverse role models for future generations. What could be better than that? And to quote composer Nicola LeFanu, commenting on last year’s results: “What’s wrong with 50:50 for a living?”’
photo: Thea Musgrave
The Estonian conductor Kristiina Poska has switched from Nordic Artists to HarrisonParrott in London for global management.
Poska, 40, recently conducted Merry Widow at English National Opera. She is music director in Basle and Flanders.
A short clip of the Chinese pianist An Tainxu being made to play the wrong concerto in his final round at the Tchaikovsky Competition is being viewed like a bushfire on social media.
The pianist was expecting to play the Tchaikovsky concerto. Instead, he heard the very short intro to the Rachmaninov Paganini Variations, having missed an announcement in Russian that the order had been reversed.
The announcer was fired.
Nobody at the competition took responsibility. The chair of the piano jury, Putin-pal Denis Matsuev, did not resign.
Artists at the Czech National Theatre who are fighting the introduction of a Norwegian artistic director have promised to wear white ribbons at this week’s much-vaunted premiere of a new production of Smetana’s Dalibor.
We are awaiting pictures of the protest.
We have been notified of the death of Peter Westergaard, former chair of the music department at Princeton and a gentle champion of post-Babbitt modernism.
He composed six operas and much chamber music.
The AFD (Alternative for Germany) right-wing party has asked the Staatstheater of Stuttgart how many immigrants are working now at the theatre, Staatsoper and the ballet, what nationalities they are and where they trained.
Since the AFD are in Parliament, the theatre is obliged to give an answer.
Read on here.
