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CIPC Young Artists Competition: four guest artist recitals (May 12, 16, 17 & 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

PRIMAKOV-VassilyThere was plenty of piano music to be heard at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory during the ten days of the Cleveland International Piano Competition’s recent Young Artists Competition, but in addition to the performances by the twenty-five contestants, ages 12-18, four seasoned recitalists were invited to play solo programs as well. Mariam Batsashvili knows her way around international competitions, while Vassily Primakov, Sean Chen and Alexander Schimpf are veterans of CIPC itself. [Read more…]

CIPC Young Artists Competition begins on May 12 at Baldwin Wallace

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by Mike Telin

CIPC-Young-Artists-Logo2On Tuesday, May 12, at 7:00 pm in Baldwin Wallace University’s Gamble Auditorium, 25 young pianists representing eight countries will compete for top prizes at the Cleveland International Piano Competition’s Young Artists Competition. Launched by the CIPC in 2003 as a one-day competition for Ohio piano students, the program has been reorganized this year to follow the multi-round format of the Senior version of CIPC. Click here to view the competition’s ten-day schedule.

Why take the Young Artist Competition to this next level? “When I came on board at CIPC and saw the level of playing by the young pianists, it took me by surprise,” CIPC president and chief executive officer Pierre van der Westhuizen said during a telephone conversation. [Read more…]

CIPC Young Artists Competition: twenty minutes with Alexander Schimpf

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by Jarrett Hoffman

SCHIMPF-Alexander“Both the ‘Hammerklavier’ and the ‘White Mass’ are about positive forces in life,” said pianist Alexander Schimpf. “In the end they’re about fighting through something and having a triumphant ending — and both endings are pretty spectacular.”

On Wednesday, May 13, at 10:00 am in Baldwin Wallace University’s Chamber Hall, Alexander Schimpf — the Mixon First Prize Winner at the 2011 CIPC — will present the first master class of the Cleveland International Piano Competition Young Artist Competition’s newly-formed Institute, to be held concurrently with the ten-day competition. Admission is free and open to the public.

Then, on Wednesday, May 20 at 7:00 pm in BW’s Gamble Auditorium, Schimpf will play the final guest recital of the Institute, performing Brahms’s 8 Klavierstücke, Op. 76, Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 7, Op. 64 (“White Mass”), and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106 (“Hammerklavier”).

[Read more…]

Review: Canton Symphony Orchestra — Making Ives Palatable, Grieg Rhapsodic, Elgar Triumphant (November 24)

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by Tom Wachunas

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Alexander Schimpf: finals of the 2011 Cleveland International Piano Competition with The Cleveland Orchestra (Photo: Roger Mastroianni)

This work could hardly be called a warm, festive mood-setter. In fact, it’s downright listener-unfriendly unless you’ve acquired some appreciation of Ives’ aesthetic explorations in polytonality, polyrhythms and other departures from traditional symphonic form. Toward that end, Maestro Gerhardt Zimmermann prefaced his unusually lengthy introduction of the work by saying that he considered Charles Ives to be “…the most authentic American composers there is.” [Read more…]

Report: Cleveland International Piano Competition Conversation — Classical Improvisation and the Cadenza (August 2)

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by Guytano Parks

GriffithThe second Festival Event of The Cleveland International Piano Competition held in the Recital Hall at The Cleveland Museum of Art, “Classical Improvisation and the Cadenza,” featured one of Cleveland’s finest improvisational pianists, Marshall Griffith. Appointed to the preparatory faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1975 and the conservatory faculty in 1982, Mr. Griffith spoke about and demonstrated the art of improvisation in an extremely engaging manner.

This morning’s enlightening conversation began with the simple question, “what is appropriate?” There are many considerations to ponder if one were to improvise a cadenza or add extra notes to the score during a concerto performance in modern-day presentations of concert music. Undoubtedly, a daunting and perhaps terrifying prospect for most, but in Mozart’s time, it was customary and second nature for the performer to not only improvise a cadenza at that special moment in a concerto, but to also add notes throughout the piece, as the solo part was rarely ever completely written down. Soloists of that period had all sorts of tricks and devices up their sleeves — scales, arpeggios, trills, themes, motives, etc. — and the technique and wisdom to know how and when to utilize them. [Read more…]

Review: Akron Symphony with Alexander Schimpf (January 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

GermanSCHIMPF-Alexander pianist Alexander Schimpf performed with a Northeast Ohio orchestra under the baton of Christopher Wilkins for the second time in two years on Saturday evening. His first appearance on August 6, 2011 — with The Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven’s fourth concerto — won him top prize in the Cleveland International Piano Competition. His second collaboration came as part of that prize package — a series of bookings with orchestras — as he returned to be the featured soloist in Chopin’s first concerto with the Akron Symphony at E.J. Thomas Hall.

It was clear from the contingent of Cleveland fans who drove down to hear Schimpf that the Cleveland Competition continues to support its laureates not only with post-contest bookings but with enthusiastic moral support. On Saturday, both Akron and Cleveland listeners were obviously thrilled by Schimpf’s gorgeously assured performance of a work the pianist has lived with for more than a decade: Chopin No. 1 was the first work he ever played with an orchestra, at the age of 18. [Read more…]

CD Review: Piano two ways: new recordings by Alexander Schimpf and Jenny Lin

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by Daniel Hathaway

OnSchimpf-CD February 1, shortly after his appearance with the Akron Symphony this weekend, 2011 Cleveland International Piano Competition winner Alexander Schimpf will release his new CD on the OEHMS Classics label. Simply titled “Ravel, Scriabin, Schubert” and recorded at the Munich studios of Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Radio) not far from Schimpf’s home in Würtzburg, the album is devoted to three works: Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin, Scriabin’s Five Preludes, op. 74, and Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat.

Though Schimpf confesses in his thoughtful liner notes that “the only determining idea for this CD” was “recording works that are particularly dear to my heart”, once his program was chosen, he noticed interesting bits of connective tissue between the pieces. They happen to be each composer’s final compositions for the piano, “late works” even for those who, like Schubert, died young. For Scriabin, op. 74 was the last music he wrote. Additionally, Ravel and Scriabin’s pieces date from 1914, “a highly charged period in Central Europe in every respect — socially, artistically and philosophically.” And the “dance-like elements” in Ravel’s suite “also determine large sections of the 3rd and 4th movements of the Schubert Sonata.”  [Read more…]

Cleveland International Piano Competition: Award Ceremony and Winners Recital

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By Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland, OH — August 8, 2011

Winners

L-R: Kyu Yeon Kim, Eric Zuber, Alexey Chernov, Alexander Schimpf. Photo by Roger Mastroianni

The Cleveland International Piano Competition awarded $116,000 in prizes and another $26,000 in consolation prizes during the final event of the 2011 Competition in Severance Hall on Sunday afternoon, August 7.

After remarks from host Robert Conrad of WCLV, Dr. James Gibbs, President of the Piano International Association of Northeast Ohio, Karen Knowlton, Executive Director of CIPC, and a nod from jury chair Peter Frankl, who declined to speak (Conrad passed along Frankl’s opinion that he’d talked enough in the last ten days!), the following special prizes were awarded: [Read more…]

Cleveland International Piano Competition: The Final Rounds with The Cleveland Orchestra

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By Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland, OH — August 7, 2011

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Alexander Schimpf playing Beethoven's 4th Concerto. Photo by Rober Mastroianni

By the time the Severance Hall concerto finals began on Friday evening, the four finalists in the Cleveland International Piano Competition had each played two hours’ worth of solo repertory in the previous three rounds. Now we had the opportunity to hear how well they played with others, the others of course being The Cleveland Orchestra under the Competition’s new conductor, Christopher Wilkins. There was a lot of cash attached to the outcomes, but winning the opportunity to perform with an orchestra of this stature was a prize all to itself.

Maestro Wilkins might have had to prepare four different concertos, had the results of the semifinals been different, but two finalists chose Brahms’ first concerto. 25-year old Korean pianist Kyu Yeong Kim opened with that work on Friday, while 28-year old Russian pianist Alexey Chernov played it during the first half of Saturday evening’s round. It’s a work with a tortured history, having started out to be Brahms’ first symphony, was then reworked into a piece for two pianos and finally (with new second and third movements) into a concerto for piano and orchestra. Even in its final shape, it shows signs of the composer’s inexperience as an orchestrator.
[Read more…]

Cleveland International Piano Competition: The Winners

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Cleveland, OH — August 6, 2011

The winners of the 2011 Cleveland International Piano Competition were announced tonight following the second concerto round with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall:

First Prize: Alexander Schimpf (right, 29, Germany)

Second Prize: Alexey Chernov (second from right, 28, Russia)

Third Prize: Eric Zuber (second from left, 26, USA)

Fourth Prize: Kyu Yeon Kim (left, 26, Korea)

The prize ceremony (including the awarding of other prizes and a winners’ recital) will be held on Sunday, August 7 at 3 pm at Severance Hall (live broadcast over WCLV, 104.9 FM).

Our review of the concerto round will be posted here on Sunday afternoon.

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