Where to begin? I could quote the Dead: “What a long, strange trip it’s been,” but that’s a bit on the nose. Or maybe it works. Let’s go with that.

Buzz through the housekeeping: I already had a vacation planned before I found out I was selected to join the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA) writer’s institute that would be covering the finals of this year’s Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (aka ‘the Cliburn’) for OAW, and fortunately I was able to dovetail both trips. I was already going to be in the Mountain West on that most serious of business: music.

The story of Van Cliburn is well known: the (as he is usually described) “lanky Texan” shocked the world by winning the inaugural Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow during the height of the Cold War, in effect beating the Russians at their own game by playing gold-medal-worthy Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky concerti. The Cliburn began shortly thereafter, and it has launched the careers of many famous pianists, including Radu Lupu, Yakov Kasman, and Jon Nakamatsu. It’s held once every four years, and has grown into one of the most prestigious competitions in the classical music world, but it also features educational and artistic outreach components, as well as a competition for 13-17 year olds, and an amateur competition for pianists 35 and older. 

In the Mozart Concerto round and the finals, the pianists are joined by the Ft. Worth Symphony Orchestra, this year under the direction of Marin Alsop. Alsop is an accomplished and well-respected conductor; she was the first person to win a MacArthur Fellowship (popularly known as the MacArthur “genius grant”) solely based on her skills as a symphonic conductor, and the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize. She also has Oregon connections: in the ‘80s and ‘90s she served as the music director of the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, as well as of the Oregon Festival of American Music.

But back to the beginning of the trip, and some very different music…my wife Kristin bought me an early Christmas present, one that scratched an item off both our bucket lists: a concert at Red Rocks, CO. Lord Huron, to be exact, those masters of mysterious, high-lonesome indie folk country ballads, ruminations on life, love and a very specific kind of death at the hands of a quixotic being known as the World Ender.  For my money, although the rocks are a bit more dramatic at Red Rocks, the Gorge at George is better. At Red Rocks, when the sun goes down, you get the endless lights of the suburbs in the background. At the Gorge, when the sun goes down, you get the endless lights of the cosmos, stretched out above the uncountable miles of the Palouse. (Not to downplay Red Rocks, or my wife’s wonderful gift.)

So of course there were also the birds. As anyone knows who’s read my articles for OAW– (all five of my fans…I love you! (Ok. All three.))–I’m all about the music and all about the birds. There were lifers: Plumbeous Vireo, Virginia’s Warbler, and Bobolink in Utah. Dramatic thunderheads peered over the Oquirrh and Wasatch Mountains surrounding the Salt Lake Valley: Cumulonimbus incus with an overshooting top and a flanking line at one point: a very serious storm held at bay by the rocky tops all around.

There were thousands of Eared Grebes off the causeway to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, with keening Willets and wailing Franklin’s Gulls filling the air with their plaintive cries. A herd of bison was there, with the inevitable touron approaching way too close, and yes, a few of what passes for an antelope in North America. (And no I’m not dissing our pronghorns—they’re just not antelopes.) Gadflies and mosquitoes were of biblical proportions at the Bear River Wetlands in Box Elder County. 

As we headed across Wyoming, we stopped here and there to avoid an inevitable heart attack due to the absolutely homicidal truckers on I-80 along the southern part of the state (if you’ve driven this route, you know what I’m talking about). We also had to dodge some incredibly menacing thunderstorms, black clouds with rain curtains that stretched down to the ground like the wrath of god, inches of hail piled up on the roadside as we passed just in the wake of one monster storm that slouched off to the south of the freeway. 

The most important stuff that ever gets done is done by volunteers

Arrival in Ft. Worth–the humidity in this part of the world is almost unbearable to one raised in the mild climes of the Pacific Northwest. Each time I stepped out of the car it was like entering a moist blast furnace. Check in at the AC Hotel was nice; a very swanky and tastefully understated joint. After going to the appointed spot to pick up my press credentials and smooth-talking my way past a faceless door warden through the intercom, I was disconcerted to find on arrival that my press pass was just that: a generic ‘press pass,’ without my name and organization on it. So I just didn’t bother bringing it to the volunteer appreciation gala at the Ft. Worth Zoo that evening, but it didn’t matter.

Upon entry at the zoo, walking down the wooden plankway and in between the round staves and torches, an air of mystery pervaded, and I felt like I was going to see King Kong. As we entered the giraffe enclosure, I decided it was more like Jurassic Park. (Yes, I watch too many movies.) We were able to feed acacia leaves directly into the gentle faces of these stunningly beautiful behemoths, and watch the Southern Ground Hornbills and Cape Vultures roam the grass, accompanied by kudu, springboks, and an Ostrich named Ruby.

Volunteers are everything; the more I volunteer, the more I realize just how much of the most important stuff that ever gets done is done by volunteers, so this fête was sumptuous and appropriate to celebrate the volunteers who make the Cliburn happen: we got our first looks at the competitors as they claimed their custom-made Justin Roper boots on stage as we stuffed our faces with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, and peach cobbler, all covered by gobs of sumptuous country gravy. (Well, except for the cobbler.) 

Night One

Before the concert started at 7:30, I hung out at the hotel bar which opened at 5. I talked with a very amicable Zillenial barkeep named Chazz, and we discussed Linkin Park and Blink 182, a couple of his favorite bands (I’m indifferent to the first, a fan of the second) and we also talked about the Van Cliburn competition; when I explained what it was and how it got started, he stated that he’d never heard of it, but he was proud that a fellow Texan had rocked the Soviets’ world back in the day. 

The Bass Performance Hall in downtown Ft. Worth, about three blocks from the hotel and built at the suggestion of Cliburn himself, is an impressive venue, featuring two 50-foot tall angels carved from Texas limestone on the façade, each blowing a long golden trumpet. When I arrived they had no tickets for me, but the staff were very gracious and gave me seats for the first two nights. 

(A note on names: It’s interesting that almost everyone referred to the finalists by their first names. One does get to feel as if one knows them personally after watching their blood, sweat and tears, and more importantly, hearing what they chose to present as their finest offering at this moment in their careers. To give a sense of what that’s like, I’ve used the first names at times, but also the last names at others. Hopefully that’s not too confusing.)

(Another note. In the following reviews, the hyperlinks are: first, to each performer’s bio; then another link to a video the actual performance I reviewed, courtesy of The Cliburn’s website (annotated with a ‘pl’ for ‘performance link’); and finally a link to the Wikipedia page on the composition itself.)

Aristo Sham, a 29-year-old Hong Kong pianist who studied at Harvard and Julliard, opened the finals on June 4 (pl) with Mendelssohn’s bubbly Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, op. 25. With only a few bars from the orchestra before the pianist starts in (which was a new innovation when Mendelssohn wrote it), I sometimes wonder if pianists prefer to have a bit of an intro, or if they like the ones better where they just charge right in. At any rate Sham exploded right out of the gates, all crispness and clarity of line. As he settled in to the pastorale portion, there was great balance between the singing molto legato soprano and the left hand, which knew its place. The octaves in the left hand were fantastic during the right-hand trillo section. During the long trill it seemed that he, not Alsop, was directing the orchestra; he exuded confidence. During the “Andante” he played in a swooning cantabile, displaying a rubato technique where there was a moment like held breath at the top of the phrase before it resumed. The “Presto” he played molto allegro e vivace indeed. A positively frenetic tempo, and yet he played with ease and grace. His showmanship was fun to watch—he’s a virtuoso showoff, but one with class—it reminded me of the swagger of a young Eddie Van Halen playing “Eruption” in New Haven CT in 1986. (Follow the link. You’ll thank me later, despite the pink parachute pants.) The body language—the flourishes of hands and feet, the way he addressed the orchestra himself instead of going through Alsop–at times it felt like it harkened back to the old days of the Baroque era, when the hot shot directed from the clavier or violin. Sham was happy, at ease, brilliant, and having fun.

22 yo Angel Stanislav Wang, who is from the U.S. but studied in Russia from a young age, was up next (pl) with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major. Possessed of incredibly long fingers, his hands crawled spiderlike up and down the ivory with great dexterity as the basso scale work grumbled up from the depths over and over. Unperturbed by a tremendously loud crash from somewhere backstage that made even me start, he proceeded with a gentle mezzo-staccato in the left hand, outlining the melodic motive with gusto. During the “Andante” his playing seemed to just appear from the ether at times—substantial, yet noncorporeal. Unlike Sham, Wang’s mode of expression was very introverted—he leaned into the piano, caressing it, hardly seeming to notice the existence of the orchestra or Alsop at times. He was at his best in the finale with the simple counterpoint of the Beethovenian nobile theme swelling and receding. The call-and-response portion between soloist and orchestra felt like Wang rising to the challenge, each time one-upping the orchestra at the end.

American pianist Evren Ozel, 26, for whom taking away piano lessons was a punishment, closed out the evening with the chestnut (pl) that started this whole thing in Moscow back in ’58, which is of course Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Major, op. 23. The opening for this concerto is as grandiose as anything in the literature, and Ozel dove right in, a huge grin on his face as he pounded the famous chords over the swelling orchestra. Alsop is a great conductor; however, in this concerto I felt that the orchestra regularly overrode the pianist in volume; Ozel’s touch was often delicate, and the orchestra should have been more restrained. Ozel displayed great deftness; the breathless tinkling wherein he managed to play a smooth legato melody solely with the fifth finger of the right hand as it was hopping everywhere gave it that ‘sounds like three hands’ feeling. One could feel the tension in the air as the audience did all it could not to explode in applause after a movement finale that could have served as a finale for the whole work. In the “Andantino semplice” there was no sacrificing exactness of line for sentimentality, and like so much Tchaikovsky, there is great sentimentality to be had here. In the finale Ozel thundered through the scales and hopping octaves with great power, and the work was a clear favorite of the crowd.

I was discussing the performance afterward with Ilona Oltuski, a delightful woman originally from Germany and now a New Yorker. A pianist and journalist with insightful wit and a deep passion for music, she and I palled around a bit in Ft. Worth, and we both shared the sentiment that it is easy to get lost in the overall soundscape of the Tchaikovsky, with his soaring, romantic Russian melodies and moving harmonic structures, and so it’s sometimes difficult to concentrate solely on the piano; it feels at times very integrated into the overall texture.

Night Two

Philipp Lynov, a 26 year-old Russian who gained entrance to the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory at age 14, played the first of his two concerti (pl) to open Wednesday’s program. He selected the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major. He opened with slow arpeggios delivered with matter-of fact exactitude—nothing overly sentimental, like a perfect martini—neither too sweet nor too dry. The very tasty, rapid-fire chromatic scales were perfectly done; the whispering pianissimo at such a rapid tempo was impressive. The two-handed glissandi that preceded the prestissimo right-hand motives were a gas; such fun to hear. Lynov’s style of playing seemed well-suited to what amounted to a long, single movement fantasia.

Given the fantastically difficult nature of this entire repertoire, it feels strange and almost disingenuous to say that we hadn’t yet gotten to the really hard stuff—but we hadn’t. Not at least until 30 year-old Vitaly Starikov, who hails from Israel and Russia, sat down to play (pl) the brutally difficult Bartók Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major.  Not that it’s the final word on the matter, but I looked up the difficulty levels of the various concerti on Talk Classical, and this work ranked the hardest out of all the concerti played in these finals, right near the top of the ‘Ridiculously Difficult’ group (which is only the second hardest group)–several spots harder than the legendary Rach 3, and just ahead of the Prokofiev 2, which was immediately to follow the Bartók. (If you’re curious about where all these concerti were ranked (I sure was) here’s the link.) Said Andras Schiff of this concerto: “For the piano player, it’s a finger-breaking piece. [It] is probably the single most difficult piece that I have ever played, and I usually end up with a keyboard covered by blood.”

Starikov was the only competitor of the group who was applauded twice before he started: first the polite welcoming applause when he walked on stage (which all competitors received), and the second time after he spent just a few seconds shy of a full minute adjusting the height on his bench, scooting it back and forth and fiddling with the height knobs 7 or 8 times. When Alsop finally looked at him as if to say, ‘can we go now?’ it prompted a wry smile from Starikov, and he acknowledged the audience’s good-natured and perhaps a bit sarcastic applause (as if they were applauding the fact that he was finally going to play)–but he didn’t start until he was good and ready.

The first movement is played at a blistering tempo; this entire work is typically played in 26-29 minutes, and Starikov delivered it in just a shade over 28, about the middle of the range. I’m guessing that would put the tempo of the opening “Allegro” at somewhere between 125 and 150 bpm–a rapid but certainly not unheard-of clip. But it’s not just the speed, it’s Schiff’s ‘finger-breaking’ difficulty. The angular melodies and fragmented, jumpy nature of the hands; the incredibly dense harmonies and contrapuntal structure; the motives requiring so much crossing and leaping of the hand that they are even piled one on top of the other to execute Bartók’s vision with a ferocity. Yet for all that Starikov still managed to keep it jaunty, like a frenetic peasant dance.

Alsop had all she could handle to keep the orchestra in time with the soloist; there are incredibly difficult-to-time entrances and exits, and in this one the orchestra must be all over that; there’s no time or space for the pianist to worry overly much about what the orchestra is doing, and Starikov didn’t. The “Adagio” was molto mysterioso, in fact so mysterioso that I couldn’t even hear the orchestra playing for the first minute or so. There was a fast portion, and Starikov charged fearlessly into a storm of fierce syncopation; an intensely emotive performer, he swayed and danced on the bench, and during the solo tacets he seemed to really enjoy listening to the orchestra. The finale “Allegro Molto” was another finger breaker; it appeared at times that I was watching someone playing the piano on fast-forward. Such rapidity of execution just hardly seems possible.

Carter Johnson, 28, is a Juilliard grad as well as a Björk and Brian Eno fan originally from Canada, but who now lives in the US while studying at Yale. Not to be outdone in the fireworks department, he finished Wednesday night (pl) with the daunting Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op 16 by Prokofiev. Originally written in 1912 and destroyed during the Russian Revolution, it was rewritten in 1923, but Prokofiev essentially considered it a completely different work; much like the Bartók, it is considered one of the most challenging pieces in the standard repertoire. Stuff that’s much more difficult than these two is typically fairly obscure and just doesn’t get played very much, because even most of the best pianists either can’t play it or don’t want to put in the stupefying effort to do so, or audiences just aren’t interested. Unlike the prior work, in which the pianist jumps right in, the Prokofiev started with a slow pattern of moody chords, but as the tension builds you know it’s going to get crazy, like the way you can feel the atmosphere when a strong storm is about to hit. You don’t know why, but you can feel it in your gut.

Johnson ably maneuvered the beautiful right-hand arpeggios crawling up and down as the left hand strode back and forth, crashing fortissimo chords, but for such a difficult piece, except for a few spots the opening movement was fairly tame, though beautiful. The “Scherzo Vivace” begins a frantic galloping immediately; at something like ten notes per second for the entire movement, the pianist has to just buckle down and go for it, yet Johnson was a cool customer. Clearly having fun, even at this pace he checked in with the orchestra numerous times. A hand-jumping acciaccatura theme that could only be described as funky opened the “Intermezzo: Allegro moderato.” Johnson’s interpretation was riveting as the movement unfolded like a dark dream of carnivale; light-hearted yet somehow sinister, the left hand playing a strong stride style. There were scalar motives that were so rapid they practically sounded like glissandi, and then actual glissandi right afterward. Shrill staccato accompanied by shrieking winds began the “Finale Allegro tempestoso.” Johnson’s hands pounced back and forth, up and down in dizzying fashion as the hypnotic melodic themes reinvented themselves in difficult ways, and at times he looked like a razzle-dazzle Three Card Monte man, hands shuffling around in such blurry, baffling ways you could hardly tell what was going on.

While the Prokofiev was more accessible than the Bartók, it hardly seemed less challenging, and, though I’m not qualified to be a juror and it’s not just about who plays the hardest work, I had a feeling I might’ve seen two of the medalists play that night (Spoiler alert: I hadn’t; I’d only seen one).

Intermezzo

Thursday was a rest day for the performers, as they had all now played their opening work, but it was a good workday for me, and I spent most of the morning writing. Ilona and I had initially agreed to go see the cattle drive together at the Ft. Worth Stockyards, but after a tiring morning of writing, I begged off. I grew up in a cow town, I’ve been to Ft. Worth before, so I just wasn’t there for it. The Cliburn threw a nice shindig for the journalists and competitors, with good cheeseburger and fried chicken sliders (not on the same slider) and some chips and pretzel bites with queso that was to die for (I ate too much of it) at the Tannahill Tavern and Music Hall in the stockyard district. A fun band was there playing music unlike anything I’d ever heard.  Called Squeezebox Bandits, in their own words they play “honky-tonk country with at Texmex flavor.” I was totally there for it and sat listening to them intently for the entire set.

Night Three

It’s interesting to write about another performance of a piece I heard just two nights prior, but at least (as some of the more seasoned veterans of big-time piano competitions lamented) we didn’t “have” to hear three Rach 3’s in the medal round! Evren Ozel was back, this time with his interpretation (pl) of the Beethoven 4. I won’t compare and contrast the performance directly with Wang’s, but I will say that for me this performance provided the purest enjoyment, the deepest spiritual satisfaction of all the performances I heard in the finals. I wanted to focus a bit more on the orchestra on this second listening, but Evren’s positively transportative playing made that difficult. At times the opening felt like a philosophical cousin of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, and Ozel leaned into that. His scalar work was beyond impressive; the delicate feathering of the sustain pedal allowed him to play his lines molto legato and cantabilissimo without ever veering into mushiness. Everything from delicate whispering to thundering chromaticism was filigreed, delicate even in the fortissimo sections. He seemed to intuit the deep mystery of the Beethovenian harmonies, to grasp that poetry that speaks directly to the nobility of the human spirit through the intermediary of the piano. He communicated often with Marin and seemed at times subsumed, his entire body tensing as if to funnel the most delicate of sounds from the most powerful of places. From a purely competitive perspective, I initially questioned the choice of this as his second work; I wondered if something flashier and more difficult might not have been a better choice. After hearing Evren play this way, that question was erased. Though I’m not a mind reader, I’ve got to think that, medal or not, he had to have been proud of this. Emotionally and artistically, he left nothing on the table with this truly sublime effort.

Angel Stanislav Wang played the fearsome “Rach Three” (Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, op. 30) for his second concerto (pl). The beautiful opening melody, which practically plays itself (and which the composer claimed wrote itself) has always felt to me like a tease, or a misdirection: so simple, so beautiful, and yet we all know what storm-tossed waters lie ahead. Wang has the large hands and long, strong fingers like Rachmaninov had, and even if at times it seemed as if the performer was reaching his limits from a technical standpoint, it was still fun to hear him hammer away at those big chords in the furious first-movement cadenza. The lighter, more diaphanous fantasia portions were breathtaking. In the “Intermezzo: Adagio” he didn’t let the melody get buried in the dense texture, and he had a fine hopping finger staccato and adroit left-hand scalar work. The big forte chords in the finale were more satisfying than those in the first, and his low scales were smoldering. While there were moments throughout where the soloist and orchestra didn’t quite mesh, the sheer stamina it takes to play this monumental work requires a hats off to any pianist who who can take on this formidable composition, and Wang did it justice.

Aristo Sham took the stage for the final concert of night three (pl) with Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, op. 83. As Marin wrung the pathos out of the orchestra, Sham’s playing was exquisite and exact, much like his opening Mendelssohn. The tremolando theme in the right hand seemed somehow coming from under the cover of the dry left hand. It was an interesting effect and difficult to describe; the ability of these elite pianists to extract colors and tones from the piano that the rest of us just can’t is a fascinating thing to note, and the long cadenza gave him the opportunity to showcase a very big, dense sound. The “Allegro appasionato” was a pleasure to hear with the leaping right hand, the clangorous chord work and meticulous accuracy from the rhythmic motives staggered between the hands; this “wisp of a scherzo” as Brahms put it, could’ve been sloppy with even one false move, but Sham was nothing if not accurate. Sham played the “Andante” mysteriously at times; this work felt like an opportunity to showcase a different skillset than the non-stop, rapid fireworks display of his first concerto. The popcorn staccato opening the final movement played into his wheelhouse; his ability to infuse the utmost delicacy to whatever blistering tempo is at hand is a hallmark of his playing. From a textural and performance standpoint I found this performance fascinating, but thematically the work just doesn’t move me the way some of the others do.

Day Four

In order to have the medal ceremony the same day as the final concerts, the Saturday June 7 concerts began at 3pm. First up was Vitaliy Starikov playing Robert Schumann’s lone entry (pl) into the oeuvre, the Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 54. Starikov’s choice made good sense from a competitive standpoint: his brilliant Bartók was a bit ‘mathematical,’ so choosing a sentimental Romantic entry, one of the most beloved of the genre, was a good counterweight. He played molto espressivo, rendering the work like a lied for piano. His singing left hand was particularly impressive, and in the fortissimo sections he hammered away at single notes in the bass like plucking a harp string as loudly as possible; in the finale his marvelously dry staccato had me smiling. What impressed me most about Starikov as the competition went on was his ability to combine an almost fanatical attention to accuracy and detail with true artistry; a profound insight into the work coupled with the ability to infuse his performance with true emotion, and yet at the same time somehow have a blast while doing it.

Carter Johnson made a bold choice in his second selection (pl) of the finals: Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major. Commissioned by a concert pianist who lost his right arm fighting for the wrong side in the First World War, many consider this to be one of the hardest concerti ever written (it also sits on the ‘Ridiculously Difficult’ level in the rankings I previously mentioned), due to…well…having to do everything with the left hand. The dense texture, the incredibly wide leaps, having to play gently with the thumb as the architect of the soprano voice, maintaining extreme dynamic contrasts between the lower accompaniment and upper melodies. Not to mention it’s Ravel, so on top of the technical challenges you’ve got the challenge of interpreting this sly, subtle, rhythmic master. Both the composition and the performance were among my favorites.

The triple ‘p’ contrabassoon and rumbling horns at the opening were delicious; I thought that this might have been the orchestra’s finest moment and was a credit to Alsop and the astoundingly difficult job she had as conductor of the finals. Carter’s opening flourish was captivating right from the start: the naked, open fifths thundering down from on high in rapid succession announced right from the outset that this was something special, something different. The maddeningly difficult descending scalar passages leading to a roaring tremolando and sudden glissando up the length of the keyboard were spellbinding; he gave a fine illusion of there being two hands. The deep wistfulness and longing he imparted to the dreamy moments, the strident surety with which he hammered away at the jazzy walking melodies, and the pellucid cadenza, effortlessly beguiling, were to me among the very finest moments imparted by this final week.

Philipp Lynov chose the Prokofiev 2 as his final concerto (pl), and it was the final performance of this Cliburn competition. The great dexterity he displayed in his first work was put to the test here, especially in the second movement, and Lynov came through with a brilliance, combining intricacy with power on the rapid-fire accents that characterized this bit. He kept the third movement glissandi smooth, rendering them as sighing agitato melodies rather than just an effect. This was another triumph for the orchestra; the groovy ragtime feel punctuated by virtuoso sections for the soloist was seamlessly put together. Lynov’s nimbleness also served him well with the extremely rapid repeated notes in the fourth movement. The introspective folksy theme really hit home, sighing like a sad trepak.

Medal Round Thoughts

One of the critics I had fun hanging out with is Arthur Kaptainis, outgoing president of MCANA, who has been to many competitions over the years. On the final day, when I told him who I liked for the medals, he said that he had given up on the prediction game years ago, but I replied that since this was my first competition, I was going to give it a go. He gave me blank stare at that, but we’d had fun ribbing one another during the course of the week, so I had a private chuckle.

So there they were: the jury panel chose Aristo Sham as gold medalist, and gave Vitaliy Starikov silver, and Evren Ozel bronze, along with the very significant prizes at this well-heeled competition, whose final week was viewed by some 60 million people worldwide. Aristo’s Mendelssohn was the first work I heard here. I had always liked the piece, but never really loved it—until now. That’s the power of a great performance. I thought at the time— “he’s going to win this thing.” Lest you think I’m touting my powers as a great prognosticator, I thought the same thing about Vitaliy the next day when I heard his Bartók 2, and then again immediately after hearing Carter Johnson’s Prokofiev 2, and yet again about Evren on Friday after witnessing his astonishingly nuanced Beethoven 4, and then I was even more sure about Carter after hearing his resplendent Ravel. So at that point I decided that rather than try to predict the winner (to myself and Ilona, the other person with whom I discussed this), I would just try to guess the 3 medalists, in no particular order (keeping in mind, of course, that I was basing my prediction solely on the finals, and not on what they had done in the previous rounds, for which I wasn’t present.) 

Having already noted my initial impressions, out of respect for the finalists I won’t say who I landed on as my own prize winners after hearing 12 fantastic concerti, but I was right about two of the three who ended up on the podium. (There wasn’t really a podium). I was very surprised that Carter Johnson didn’t medal, and even more shocked that he received none of the discretionary awards for his total body of work, but I suppose one’s favorites can’t always win. In saying that, I can’t envision which of the medalists he might’ve replaced, because three of the four best concerto performances were by the medalists: Aristo’s Mendelssohn, Evren’s Beethoven, and Vitaliy’s Bartók (I’d put Carter’s Ravel right up there with them). 

Some tidbits from the press conference about the gold medalist (and winner of the audience favorite award): asked if he was surprised to be a medalist, Aristo said he wasn’t surprised to be the winner, because he came in with no expectations as to whether he would medal—he said he just tried to focus on the music. When asked if he was especially drawn to 19^th-century music, given that he played Mendelssohn and Brahms for the finals, and Beethoven’s [fiendishly difficult] “Hammerklavier Sonata” (pl) for the quarterfinals, he pointed out that he played Ravel’s [fiendishly difficult] Gaspard de la nuit (pl) as part of his opener, and stated that he was drawn to ‘meticulously constructed’ music. He also noted that he was proud to be the first Cliburn gold medalist from Hong Kong.

(Note: I look forward to the Sunriver Music Festival in August, where Starikov will play a solo recital on the penultimate night, and a Mozart concerto on the final night.)

When all was said and done, despite the exhausting schedule (and I was only writing about it; I can scarcely imagine what it would be like to be a performer), I was wistful and a bit sad to leave. I had wondered initially if it would be a bit much, all these piano concerti, one right after the other, but instead I found myself sort of habituated to it–I was bummed that I wouldn’t be going to another night of concerts. Incredible music (as we all know) provides a powerful endorphin hit, so this week of music was literally addictive, and while the incredible performance library at the Cliburn website is nursing me through withdrawals, there’s nothing quite like being there in person. My press badge (with my name on it) will be one of my prized possessions until the day I die. I’ll miss my MCANA pals, but I hope to see them in the future. However, the music was singular, and those moments are already lost in time.

But there’s another Cliburn in 2029…