Russians are leading 4-1 at Van Cliburn
NewsTwo Russians and two Belarussians are through to the Van Cliburn quarterfinals, along with one Ukrainian.
These are the last 18:
Albert Cano Smit, Spain/Netherlands, 25
Dmytro Choni, Ukraine, 28 (pictured)
Federico Gad Crema, Italy, 23
Anna Geniushene, Russia, 31
Masaya Kamei, Japan, 20
Uladzislau Khandohi, Belarus, 20
Honggi Kim, South Korea, 30
Andrew Li, United States, 22
Yunchan Lim, South Korea, 18
Denis Linnik, Belarus, 26
Kate Liu, United States, 28
Jinhyung Park, South Korea, 26
Changyong Shin, South Korea, 28
Ilya Shmukler, Russia, 27
Clayton Stephenson, United States, 23
Yutong Sun, China, 26
Marcel Tadokoro, France/Japan, 28
Yuki Yoshimi, Japan, 22
Don’t bring music down to the political level. May the best pianist win no matter their nationality.
Absolutely, this virtue signaling is mindless nonsense!
For the cultural representation of a country commiting mass murder, torture, rape and genocide, a great Putin propaganda victory sure to be heavily exploited in the Russian press. Russian musicians are heavily and inextricably underwritten through Gergiev by Putin blood money, so pure art for arts sake is pure fatuity. Van Cliburn would be appalled, and I weep for this callused myopic slap in the face of suffering Ukrainian millions.