Ohnesorg’s last post is filled
NewsMessage from Tobias Richter, president of the Geza Anda Foundation:
Still deeply struck by the news of the sudden death of our Jury Chairman-designate, Prof. Franz Xaver Ohnesorg, we undertook every effort to continue with the preparations for our competition as planned, in the spirit of the musical legacy of Géza Anda and in the spirit of the competition as conceived by its founder, Hortense Anda.
We are now delighted that Rico Gulda, pianist and head of artistic planning at the Vienna Konzerthaus, has
agreed to chair our 2024 jury. In view of this special situation, we also decided to extend the registration deadline for competition participants up to and including 11th February 2024.
The 2024 jury will now consist of Rico Gulda (chairman), Martha Argerich, Ricardo Castro, Zlata Chochieva, Lucas Debargue, Konstanze Eickhorst, Toshio Hosokawa, Robert Levin and Dénes Várjon.
When asked about 2022 Cliburn’s exclusion of chamber music, Rico Gulda proposed that chamber music is unnecessary for pianists, citing that since “Sokolov plays mainly solo”, it is unnecessary for pianists:
(Page 34, WFIMC Yearbook 2024)
https://issuu.com/florian.riem/docs/2024_wfimc_year_book_0116?ff
To save others the trouble of looking it up, what he actually said was that “chamber music requires a kind of musical understanding that some soloists lack” and “I am not sure we can continue to expect solo and chamber music star qualities from every artist, even though that would be the ideal. … people like Grigory Sokolov play mainly solo and others like Igor Levit are very gifted chamber musicians as well. Everyone has to find their own way.”