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Cooper International Piano Competition: July 28 solo finals order and repertory

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Oberlin, OH, July 28, 2010

The Cooper International Piano Competition has released the following details about Wednesday evening’s solo finals round which begins at 8:00 pm EDT in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. The finals will be broadcast live over WCLV, 104.9 FM and streamed on the Internet from wclv.com.

The order in which each pianist will play was determined by a drawing of lots, and the judges have selected a 30-minute program for each pianist from his or her repertoire. However, each pianist will be told what pieces he or she is to play, and in what order, only moments before walking on stage. We also allow each pianist an opportunity to select the Steinway of his or her choice, so there will be a brief pause between the performances.

The contestants are listed in performance order.

[Read more…]

Cooper International Piano Competition: six advance to solo finals round

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Oberlin, OH, July 28, 2010

The following young pianists will play the solo finals round on Wednesday evening, July 28 at 8:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory. The concert is free and will be broadcast live on WCLV, 104.9 FM and streamed on the Internet from www.wclv.com.

John Chen (16, Virginia, USA)
Anna Han (14, Arizona, USA)
Sahun Hong (16, Texas, USA)
George Li (14, Massachusetts, USA)
Kate Liu (16, Illinois, USA)
Tristan Teo (13, Canada)

The three winners of the solo finals round will play concertos with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall in Cleveland, on Friday, July 30 at 8:00 pm EDT.

Cooper International Piano Competition: Tuesday’s concerto round

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Oberlin, OH, July 27, 2010

by Daniel Hathaway

The plan was to advance ten young pianists into the concerto round of the Cooper Competition, but apparently the judges found the talent pool so deep that eleven players were actually scheduled into today’s pair of sessions in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory. Good thing Warner Hall isn’t a cruise ship — it would have been listing seriously to the port side as nearly the whole audience of contestants, parents, friends and onlookers clustered on the keyboard side of the hall to get a good look at the twenty-two hands that would be performing today.

Afternoon Session

Considering only the five who performed during the 2:30 slot, there’s no lack of digital prowess among the 13-18 year old set. Concerto movements by Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Ravel, Mozart and Rachmaninoff received masterful performances by ten young performers with “orchestral” support ably supplied by second pianists James Howsmon, Yury Shadrin and Chien-Lin Lu. [Read more…]

Cooper International Piano Competition: eleven advance to concerto round

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Oberlin, OH, July 27, 2010

Eleven young pianists have advanced to the Concerto Round of the Cooper International Piano Competition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Today’s concerto round with piano accompaniment will begin at 2:30 pm and 7:30 pm in Warner Concert Hall. ClevelandClassical.com will post reports following each session. Here is the schedule with approximate starting times:

2:30 – John Chen (16, Virginia, USA) – Tchaikovsky #1, first movement.
3:00 – George Li (14, Massachusetts, USA) – Chopin #1, first movement.
3:20 – Su Yeon Kim (16, Korea) – Ravel in G, first movement.
3:35 – Bolai Cao (13, China) – Mozart K. 466, first movement.
4:50 – Fantee Jones (16, California, USA) – Rachmaninoff #2, third movement.

7:30 – Leonardo Colafelice (14, Italy) – Rachmaninoff #3, first movement.
8:00 – Sahun Hong (16, Texas, USA) – Beethoven #3, third movement.
8:15 – Yon-Joon Yoon (17, Maryland, USA) – Tchaikovsky #1, first movement.
8:45 – Kate Liu (16, Illinois, USA) – Prokofiev #3, third movement.
9:00 – Tristan Teo (13, Canada) – Beethoven #3, third movement.
9:15 – Anna Han (14, Arizona, USA) – Rachmaninoff #3, first movement.

Cooper International Piano Competition: 22 advance to second round

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Oberlin, OH, July 26, 2010

Twenty-two young pianists will advance today to the second round of the Cooper International Piano Competition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Here is the roster in alphabetical order.

Bolai Cao (13, China)
John Chen (16, Virginia, USA)
Leonardo Colafelice (14, Italy)
Anna Han (14, Arizona, USA)
Sahun Hong (16, Texas, USA)
Xuesha Hu (17, China)
Fantee Jones (16, California, USA)
Paul Juhn (18, Illinois, USA)
Sun Hwa Kim (18, Korea)
Su Yeon Kim (16, Korea)
Connie Kim-Sheng (18, California, USA)
Jee Min Lee (13, Korea)
Seung-Hyun Lee (16, Korea)
George Li (14, Massachusetts, USA)
Hanbo Liu (18, New Jersey, USA)
Kate Liu (16, Illinois, USA)
Scott MacIsaac (18, Canada)
Tristan Teo (13, Canada)
Chelsea Wang (16, Iowa, USA)
Ming Xie (16, China)
Yon-Joon Yoon (17, Maryland, USA)
Fifi Zhang (17, Virginia, USA)

A Conversation with cornetto virtuoso Bruce Dickey

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Bruce Dickeyby Daniel Hathaway

Bruce Dickey has been largely responsible for the modern revival of one of the most fascinating instruments in the Renaissance and Baroque instrumentarium. Now living in Bologna, where he is a member of the modern incarnation of the Renaissance wind band Concerto Palatino, he returns to Northeast Ohio this month to teach at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute and play in Monteverdi’s ‘Vespers of 1610’. We interviewed him over coffee last December when he was in Cleveland to play the Praetorius Christmas Vespers with Apollo’s Fire.

Daniel Hathaway: What was your first encounter with the cornetto?

Bruce Dickey: I was an undergraduate at Indiana University when I discovered the recorder and I discovered a group there that was playing recorders, shawms, krummhorns. One of the other players in the group was Michael Lynn, who’s now at Oberlin — we were two members of the wind component of that ensemble, and we were sitting one day in the rehearsal room with all the instruments hanging in a cupboard, and he pointed at the cornetto and said “that’s your instrument”. And I said, “No, no, no.” I was a trumpet student at the time and I looked at that mouthpiece and said, “I don’t want to do that”. It took a couple of years before I came around. I did play a few pieces on the cornetto. I shudder to think that there are probably still tapes lurking in the music library there. And then I went off to Basel to study the recorder and I ordered a plastic cornetto from Christopher Monk and took it with me to Basel and started to take some lessons from Edward Tarr.
[Read more…]

Picks of the Season Nominations: from our readers

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We invited our readers to submit outstanding performances of the 2009-2010 season (September through June). Here are the submissions we received.

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I’d like to nominate Akron Baroque for Cleveland Classical’s Best of the Season highlights.  I’m so proud of the growth of this little orchestra in such a short period of time.  Not only has our audience quadrupled since Akron Baroque’s birth in 2006, but this May’s concert introduced our new Akron Baroque Chamber Chorus to an overwhelmingly  warm community response.  It’s truly the realization of a dream.

Amy Barlowe – June 2

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Akron Symphony: Mahler 9 at Severance Hall.

Akron Symphony: Opera Exerpts November 2009 at E.J. Thomas Hall

Richard A. Dee – June 2 [Read more…]

Picks of the Season: Timothy Robson

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I think my favorite for the season is a very recent Cleveland Orchestra concert, May 23, that had the Beethoven “Eroica” Symphony and ‘Coriolan Overture’, and the Berg ‘Lulu’ suite.  They sounded better and more cohesive than I’ve heard them in ages (which is saying a lot considering the kind of precision that the Cleveland Orchestra has even on less-than-great nights), and Franz had something inspiring to communicate in both of the major pieces on the program.

The other, totally different, program that I don’t recall ClevelandClassical covering was the performance of Stainer’s ‘Crucifixion’ on Good Friday evening at Trinity Cathedral. That old warhorse would not seem to have the makings of something memorable, but it was a tasteful, loving and ultimately quite touching performance.  (I don’t necessarily want to hear it again soon, but it was good to hear Stainer’s work treated respectfully.)

Picks of the Season: Mike Telin

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When we at ClevelandClassical.com first discussed writing about our “standouts” of the 2009-2010 concert season, I thought it was a great idea. What could possibly be difficult about this task? However when I really began to think about the 65 concerts that I attended between September 2009 and the first week of June 2010, the simple task quickly became daunting. For me, there are so many reasons for one to enjoy, or not to enjoy a concert. These reasons accompanied by the fact that each organization and or ensemble have their own missions guiding how they choose to fill a role in Northeast Ohio’s vibrant classical music scene, too often led me to feel that I was comparing apples to oranges. Therefore I have chosen to write about my own “standouts” in two distinct sections. First, is an overview of concerts that I feel deserve a big hand of applause, and second, my own picks of complete performances by an artist or ensemble that for one reason or another are still engraved in my musical memory.

I begin by giving hearty congratulations to James Feddek and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Liza Grossman and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, Christopher James Lees and the Akron Youth Symphony, and Joanne Erwin and the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestras. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the performances of these young musicians. They are our future performers and more importantly our future audiences. These ensembles also have a lot to say musically. [Read more…]

Picks of CMA’s Season: Tom Welsh

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Tom Welsh is assistant director for music at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Here are his highlights from the series at the Museum last season.

Thanks for letting me indulge in some delightful recollections of our last season, it was another exciting and diverse year of music. Here are a handful of personal highlights, in chronological order:

Garth Knox performing solo and duo (with cellist Lauren Radnofsky) on viola and viola d’amore, blending very old with very new – from Marin Marais to Salvatore Sciarrino. [8 November 2009 @ Plymouth Church of Shaker Square]

NYC-based composer/sound artist Marina Rosenfeld led her Sheer Frost Orchestra, an ensemble of 15 floor-bound electric guitars, as part of the CIA student exhibition in the museum and the special event called “After Hours” (and the electro-duo Eats Tapes were great, too.) [13 November 2009 @ CMA]

On the heels of the successful debut of his opera “A House in Bali,” about Colin McPhee, composer/performer Evan Ziporyn brought his Gamelan Galak Tika to town for a fascinating east-meets-west program. [8 January 2010 @ Cleveland Museum of Natural History] [Read more…]

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