In the August 17th edition of ClevelandClassical.com…
Ballet has been a rare commodity in Cleveland since Cleveland Ballet closed shop in 2000. Dance had been a staple at Blossom from the opening of the Cleveland Orchestra’s summer music center in 1968 until it suddenly disappeared from the menu after 1988. But this Saturday and Sunday, the art form returns with high-profile — and high-energy — performances of five works by the celebrated Joffrey Ballet.
We’ve compiled a thirty-page pdf archive of all of our coverage of the 2009 Cleveland International Piano Competition, including interviews with the four finalists. Download it and enjoy!
We asked for details a bit late, but wanted our readers to know that WCLV, 104.9 FM, will be re-broadcasting the concerto performances of the Final Four this week on the station’s Big Work at One series. Here’s the schedule:
Tuesday, August 11 at 1 pm: fourth-place winner Evgeny Brakhman in Rachmaninoff’s third concerto.
Wednesday, August 12 at 1 pm: third-place winner William Youn in Brahms’ first concerto.
Thursday, August 13 at 1 pm: second place winner Dmitri Levkovich in Rachmaninoff’s second concerto.
Friday, August 14 at 1 pm: first-place winner Martina Filjak in Rachmaninoff’s second concerto.
Any remaining time before two p.m. each day will feature Martina Filjak in solo performances from earlier rounds of the competition.
This week’s issue of ClevelandClassical.com features Dan Hathaway’s wrap up of the final days of the Cleveland International Piano Competition. He includes a glimpse of Friday’s Master Classes with jurors Peter Frankl and Dina Yoffe:
If you wanted insights into what the jury was looking for or found wanting — at least as expressed by two of the eight pairs of ears — here was your opportunity.
Inevitable comparisons: in a competition, you want to listen to every performance as if you’re hearing both the piece and the performer for the first time, but with two versions of Rachmaninoff’s second concerto scheduled on two adjacent nights, what’s a listener to do but think about each of them in relation to the other. Both are still ringing in the ears.
Croatian pianist Martina Filjak made an immediate impression with her carefully wrought crescendo and intensifying coloration of the famous opening chords and bass punctuation that begin Rach 2. Same conductor, same orchestra, but when the other hundred or so musicians on the stage joined Filjak in her musical odessey through this engaging score, it was clear that the soloist was seeing it through a different lens.
The winners of the 2009 Cleveland International Piano Competition:
Fourth Prize – Evgeny Brakhman
Third Prize – William Youn
Second Prize – Dmitri Levkovich
First Prize – Martina Filjak
Other prizes will be announced at the ceremony on Sunday afternoon.
UPDATED 8/9/09
Junior Jury Prize – Martina Filjak
Audience Prize – Dmitri Levkovich
Baroque Prize – Hoang Pham
Beethoven Prize – Martina Filjak
Cairns Family American Prize – Sean Chen
Chopin Prize – Soo Yeon Ham
Contemporary Prizes – Evgeny Brakhman and Martina Filjak
Mozart Prize – Evgeny Brakhman
Finalists Martina Filjak and William Youn - photo Sam Hubish
You’ll find Dan Hathaway’s interview with tonight’s finalists, Martina Filjak and William Youn on Cleveland Classical.com.
It’s a dream come true for Rachmaninoff fans: three concertos (well, two different ones) performed on two adjacent evenings at Severance Hall — followed by a Brahms chaser.
Dmitri Levkovich (30, Canada) and Evgeny Brakhman (28, Russia) both speak Russian not only linguistically but musically. The first round of the CIPC Finals gave these fine young pianists the opportunity to show off their interpretive skills in collaboration with Jahja Ling and the Cleveland Orchestra.
In the orchestral hierarchy, concertos don’t get much rehearsal time compared to symphonic works. In this case, there was even less time to be had: each of the two soloists spent about an hour with the orchestra earlier in the day, after a seance with Maestro Ling on Thursday to talk things through. Every detail can’t have been worked out under those circumstances, but there are hundreds of recordings in circulation that have nothing on what we heard from these two pianists, who were obviously pumped for the occasion. It was quite an evening.
Evgeny Brakhman and Dmitri Levkovich - photo Sam Hubish
Yesterday CPIC kindly made the four finalists available for a photo op and interviews. We conversed in pairs to get to know the off-stage personalities of these gifted pianists. You will find Dan Hathaway’s interview with tonight’s finalists, Dmitri Levkovich and Evgeny Brakhman, on ClevelandClassical.com, here.