by Daniel Hathaway
On Thursday evening in Gartner Auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland International Piano Competition entered a new phase. In the first of four Semifinal rounds, two live pianists gave 40-minute performances for a live audience — a welcome change from the pandemic-dictated videos that took eight pianists virtually through the first two rounds and bought them tickets to Cleveland.
Ying Li, 23, from Beijing China, moved to the U.S. when she was 14 to study at the Curtis Institute with Jonathan Biss and Seymour Lipkin, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2019. She is now enrolled in the master’s program at Juilliard, studying with Robert McDonald.
Li chose a wide-ranging program of music by Mozart, Richard Strauss (filtered through Percy Grainger), and Bartók that showed different facets of her musical personality. [Read more…]
Lin Ye (28, China) introduced the second round with one of Beethoven’s most famous works: Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53, “Waldstein.” The pianist combined a beautiful light touch with sensitive phrasing to keep the piece in constant motion, preventing the repetitive chordal figures from sounding stagnant. Ye took his time in the slow and expressive opening of the second movement, fully focused on listening and responding to the music.