On eve of opening, Tchaikovsky Competition has no jury
NewsThe 17th international Tchaikovsky Competition will be opened in a formal ceremony in Moscow tomorrow, at the conservatoire that bears the composer’s name.
Latest press release:
At 19:00 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory a grandiose concert-opening of the XVII International Competition named after P.I. Tchaikovsky. The concert will feature a stellar line-up of artists — a Chinese pianist and composer, laureate of the 2nd prize at the 1st International Tchaikovsky Competition. P.I. Tchaikovsky Liu Shi Kun (piano), Russian pianist, winner of the XI International Tchaikovsky Competition. P.I. Tchaikovsky Denis Matsuev, Russian opera singer, winner of the Grand Prix of the X International Tchaikovsky Competition. P.I. Tchaikovsky Khibla Gerzmava (soprano), Mongolian opera singer, winner of the Grand Prix of the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition P.I. Tchaikovsky Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar (baritone), Russian cellist, laureate of the II prize at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition P.I. Tchaikovsky Alexander Ramm and Russian violinist, laureate of the III Prize of the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition P.I.
Conducting the Symphony Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater is Co-Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the XVII International Tchaikovsky Competition. P.I. Tchaikovsky Valery Gergiev.
However, no juries have yet been finalised for the competition. A hoax message was circulated yesterday by Russian sources, claiming several western names as jury chairs. It has since proved false.
They’ll hopefully type up the names of the jury soon.
In the meantime, let us rejoice at the breadth and depth of contestants!
A pianist from the UK – good ol’ Blighty, an Italian, several South Koreans, and in other categories, Australians, Americans, Japan, Slovenia etc…
This proves music triumphs over politics! Bravo to all who entered! Looking forward to some mesmerising performances.
Not sure that having no jury will make any difference in the present circumstances. It used to be just “reds under the beds” but it’s turned a lot more sinister.
Hopefully Mr. Putin will not give them the same peaceful treatment as the one ha had for the African heads of state
Of course the Chinese are going to show up, probably commanded to show up. Where are the Iranians, Syrians and North Koreans?
Why would the Chinese need to be “commanded” to show up. Russian invasion of Ukraine is to them no different than American invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which are even closer to their home. Despite its growing popularity in China classical music is nowhere near the top of any politician’s agenda and therefore thankfully relatively free of politics or geopolitics.
The Soviets were the ones who invaded Afghanistan first. Get your facts straight. The terrorist incidents of 9 September 2011 stemmed all the way back to the Soviet war on a small sovereign nation that used to be as developed and welcoming as Turkey or Austria (nobody on this website is old enough to have experienced this in person). In recent times, Putin also directed the Russian military to bomb aid convoys carrying food, medicine and medical personnel to innocent civilians. The war in Iraq in the 21st century many might disapproved of, but did have backing from many Iraqi citizens who had been writing to and begging governments of the West for several years to remove Saddam Hussein, who regularly arranged false arrests and kidnappings of activists, journalists, citizens and other critics of his, and made them disappear.
Politics as the only measure of artistic values!? How pathetic and vulgar. It’s vitriolic as well. Go nuclear smarties! Apocalypse now!!!
Why on earth would the two American piano candidates (although Angel Wang has been based in Russia for a while) even think of participating? Have they heard of Brittney Griner?
Because American pianists are not worth anything to trade for.
Like Van Cliburn, you mean…
Well, unless they’re planning to exhume the body, Ayin has a point.
Yet Yuja Wang & so many others are trained in the US. Go figure.
That’s a bit harsh.
Look at the photos on the website of the pianists drawing nos. The US candidate Min Joo Yi, who will play first, looks very frightened.
She has an impressive academic & musical pedigree in the US, but she hails from a smallish city in Washington state (west coast) where the full international implications of what she’s taking on might not have been fully understood.
Given what we all think of Russians participating in this Competition, just imagine what Russians there must think of her, as a US citizen. My heart goes out to this young woman. I don’t think she knew what she was getting into.
She knew for sure. She wants a medal so much that nothing can stop her – there is no fear, there is no decency, there is no self respect, no emphaty……lacking anything which is proper to a normal human. Same comes to all involved in this corrupted competition organized by war supporters.
Do you know these contestants personally to make these claims with such conviction? If not, your comments reflect more poorly on yourself than anyone else. Ironic especially to mention decency or empathy
Imagine you would get into that situation, might as well just be onstage to embarrass yourself and the country you are representing.
We can’t possibly imagine facing the entire Russia in that humongous hall as one little girl. Huge respect to that participant for showing what courage means. Nice try but your assumption does not have any logic and reality.
A mere jealousy is only seen, perhaps.
Huik Chu still needs educate good manners and right conduct on internet 🙂 sound so aggressive and superior. but actually they are jealous and threatened as hell. just ignore 🙂
“Given what WE ALL think of Russians??”. Do you realize what you’re even saying?? WE are not one person, and WE don’t all think of Russian badly. My heart goes out to you if you feel so negatively about an entire ethnic group of people participating in any international contest.
Since there has been no news of Min Joo Yi’s kidnapping (or of any other harm inflicted on her), she was apparently quite safe there. And she wouldn’t have gone there if she was consumed by resentment in the first place.
The participants clearly show what a lame duck this competition has become. Mainly Russian musicians, who are no doubt very capable, but “international” it is not. A few candidates from the West as decoration, some of whom will go far so that one can claim to contribute to international understanding – in contrast to the “evil” West, which supposedly fights Russian culture. In fact, this Russian culture in Russia is only a thin layer above what Putin’s state actually is. Taking part in the competition means following the principle of “see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing”, as Gergiev explicitly puts it. And right at the top is the symbol of the Russian government. Unfortunately, Olga Smirnova is one of the very few who did the right thing without hesitation. No Malofeev, no Dovgan around. They have a career in the West, whereas Gergiev will never conduct there again. TCE, Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, La Scala, RAH … closed doors everywhere.
Dovgan is too young. You have to be 16 at the start of the competition. And witnessing the 2015 and 2019 competitions first-hand, there were issues that could have been handled to Russia’s advantage, but actually were not. In later years, the competition has played by the rules more and more. But yes, this competition might be something else entirely…
What a relief! I just couldn’t believe that Clive Gillinson was going to serve on the jury! That list is such a sick prank for an already sorely tarnished event. I can’t imagine that any sane person would want any involvement with this competition.
That is the jury from 2019. If you read that page, it becomes clear that you pulled up the list of 2019 jury chairs that still sits in the TCH page for some reason. Actually reading the material you are commenting on would be helpful.
There are SO many errors in NL’s posts… saying there is no jury is inaccurate; the fact that the 2019 jury list is a ‘hoax’ is inaccurate; another post refers to who is in ‘the finals’ when the competition hasn’t even begun…. sloppy journalism for clickbait…
Misleading headline/’creative’ journalism. There is a jury. It just hasn’t been announced yet.
Ironic that with the hatred of LGBTQ+ Putin whips up that they name the competition after a gay composer.
He’s been dead since 1893.
I rather doubt that Putin personally hates LGBT+ people. This is his political tool. If a homosexual person can serve state’s propaganda then the government invalidates his homosexuality. You don’t need to be dead composer for that. In Russian show business, as everywhere else, gays are in abundance but as long as they faithfully serve putin’s power they are treated as they were heteros, their orientation doesn’t affect their careers. Think Kirkorov, Baskov, Dima Bilan, Netrebkos etc.
Here are a couple of reasons to avoid supporting this competition right now:
You can read Gergiev’s and Luybimova’s welcome greetings on Competition’s website. Valery Gergiev is included in the report “1500 Warmongers” compiled by the Free Russia Forum. The report contains the names of Russian public figures, military commanders, members of the parliament, propagandists, artists and athletes who have publicly spoken out in support of Putin’s aggression or are directly involved in it. The European Union has sanctioned Lyubimova. “Under [Lyubimova’s] responsibility, the [Russian Culture] Ministry has extended both financial resources and programme support to the so-called ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and ‘Luhansk People’s Republic,’” the EU states in its official journal, published on 16 December. “Several projects undertaken under her guidance aim to integrate those illegally annexed regions of Ukraine into Russia’s cultural scene. She is also indirectly involved with the DESTRUCTION of Ukraine’s cultural heritage and artefacts, and for lack of efforts to protect the cultural heritage in the now annexed territories. In taking on and acting in this capacity, she is responsible for, supporting or implementing actions or policies which undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, or stability or security in Ukraine, or which obstruct the work of international organisations in Ukraine.”
And still, read this written by Sophia Kishkovsky on December 22, 2022: “St. Petersburg was tasked with reconstructing Mariupol when the two became sister cities in June. On Tuesday, an installation depicting intertwined hearts with the names of the two cities was returned to Palace Square in front of the Hermitage. It was partially dismantled over the weekend after a sign appeared on it saying, “Murderers, you bombed it. Judases” referring to the destruction of Mariupol. A 17-year-old high school student WAS DETAINED on charges of “discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation” for making the sign.
To date, at least 230 cultural sites across Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed, and more than 15,000 pieces of Ukrainian fine art and artifacts have been stolen in what international watchdog groups have called a systematic plunder of Ukrainian museums by Russian forces.
Nearly the entire collection of the Kherson Regional Art Museum was cleaned out by Russian forces, while in Melitopol, one of the first cities occupied in the invasion, a trove of Scythian gold was stolen from a local museum.
One of the most awful things about it is that Piotr Tchaikovsky would have hated what Russia is doing in Ukraine.
How do you know that? did you talk to his spirit? did he appear to you in a dream?
A little more than 20 years ago, in March 2003, the infamous “shock and awe” heralded the brutal invasion of Iraq by the US military forces. Yes, the one where they hung the country’s leader, plunged a sovereign country into chaos, and eventually gave a rise to ISIS. In 2005, the Cliburn Competition took place as usual, nobody boycotted it, and nobody shed tears about the invasion. Hmm… a bit of double standard?
You don’t understand. We all long-waited for this very moment to hate Russia and Russians. Finally we are allowed and supported with this hatred. And US… it’s not the same, because we never had such a “phantom hatred” to them, just because we can’t sanction those who give us Coca-Cola and iPhones (even being produced in China).
Double-standards and old-fashioned “russophobia” is our so-called “motto”.
Please dislike this comment in appreciation of these thoughts
A small point, I know, but they weren’t killing their own people.
Sorry, I was wrong — the Iraqi war took place before the concept of “cancellation” infiltrated Western mentality and assumed the central and most fundamental position there. Indeed, if we can’t cancel something (or someone) personally, we cheer for those who can and, invariably, gloat over who or what gets canceled. Please disregard my rant re Iraqi war. We now live in a new, more exciting era.
You may want to forget Iraq but you cannot forget Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia – millions killed in two illegal wars (never endorsed by Congress) and one allegedly legal but based on a falsehood. And that’s before you mention the political vacuum left by Nixon and Kissinger’s illegal incursion into Cambodia which led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and another million + deaths in horrific circumstances. Everyone has short memories, it seems. The US has nothing to crow about and a great deal it would prefer forgotten. The families destroyed when B52s dropped more bombs on tiny landlocked Laos than in the whole of WWII is still killing and maiming mostly children because about 30% of the cluster bombs failed to explode – until now! War anywhere is ghastly.
Not many powerful nations are innocent of war crimes. Why are you blaming only the US, especially in this context?
The US is a moot point in the Tchaikovsky Competition. We are not a cultural world power. Our only candidates are children of Asian immigrants.
Stop beating a dead horse. Leave the US out of your blame game. We present no threat whatsoever to cultural world dominance.
Putin has isolated Russia from the rest of the world. Let’s keep it this way until Russian terrorism in Ukraine is over !
Have people overlooked the true point because of their political biases, when it could have been a privileged
or perhaps a final opportunity for all the participants? Surely the competition has become corrupted, but what matters is not which political side the musicians align, Music should be free from politics. Who are we to judge their achievements and the courage they showed by competing in a war-torn foreign country? They may face consequences and disadvantages from the people who fail to understand their circumstances but seriously from their own fellow citizens? Did we really have to trash on them about it? Why was it so necessary for you to do it? What rights do we have to begin with?
Let’s please not disrespect or dismiss our fellow American participants who made sacrifices to compete. Surely the criticisms may have come from Russia but did all the criticism have to come from their own country, especially US? We can never understand what musicians are going through, but surely these Tchaikovsky competitors from the US likely endured even greater hardships.
Come on, people. They deserve an applause to even decide to go there. Would you have done the same even if the competition was supposed to be your endgame; surely you would have been just a coward left behind the scene.
If you believe in yourself, go ahead: by spreading such toxicity, you are doing really well to kill one musician and a fellow citizen step by steps. Nothing more but just a murderer in disguise.
If you would continue it, then bravo, you don’t deserve any music or any culture. Biased.