by Neil McCalmont
The Second Round of CIPC commenced on Thursday, July 28, and the jury and audience were treated to two sessions of stellar performances at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium. The competition is only heating up. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
The opening sessions of the Cleveland International Piano Competition’s first round proved to be a thrilling start on Monday, July 25 at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium. Eleven fine contestants showcased their virtuosity and poesy before eight jurors — all of whom are renowned pianists in their own right. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
It’s the time of year when lots of young people have been eagerly watching their mailboxes — or inboxes — to see whether they’ve been admitted to the college of their choice.
This year, the same has been true for the nearly 330 pianists, ages 18-30, who applied to compete in the 2016 Cleveland International Piano Competition, to be held from July 24 through August 7. Of those hopefuls, 35 recently received the “fat” letter inviting them to Cleveland — an acceptance rate of 10.6%, which is roughly equivalent to that of last year’s admissions to Dartmouth, Duke, or Vanderbilt.
The successful candidates emerged a few weeks ago after a marathon, three-day session of video viewing by a selection jury made up of Kathryn Brown and Paul Schenly (Cleveland Institute of Music), Lei Weng (University of Colorado), Caroline Oltmanns (Youngstown State University), and CIPC president and CEO Pierre van der Westhuizen. The 35 who were invited have now formally accepted. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Before beginning the Semi-Final Round which would bring eight pianists to the Gartner Auditorium stage in afternoon and evening sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, CIPC executive director Pierre van der Westhuizen invited the audience to treat the one-hour performances as actual concerts and “applaud and cheer” when they felt so moved, an invitation that produced interesting and varied results from the sizeable crowd.
Ruoyu Huang (24, China, left) was first to perform on Tuesday afternoon, beginning with French music — two Debussy Preludes and Ravel’s La Valse — then went on to Schumann’s Davidsbündertänze and Balakirev’s Islamey. Debussy’s Minstrels and Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest presented Huang with the opportunity to paint two different impressionistic scenes that might have been even more vivid had he brought out color and rhythm in the first and played with more sweep and legato in the second. His gloriously virtuosic reading of La Valse was suitably decadent with dramatic ebb and flow and his Schumann visited every emotional level from the dreamy to the passionate. His pianissimo playing was lovely. Festive and characteristic, Huang’s performance of the Balakirev — an unabashed showpiece without a lot of musical content — was a flight of sheer pianism. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Time for second impressions! Ryoyu Huang stepped up first in the second round with Haydn, Britten and the last half of Chopin’s Op. 28 Preludes (he had played the first dozen in the opening round). Huang’s breezy excursion through Haydn’s E Major sonata (Hob. XVI:31) didn’t leave him much room to sniff out details. He played with an agreeably hefty tone, and many of his lines had a good sense of direction. Britten composed his gloomy Notturno for just such a competition as this one (Leeds), giving pianists a catalogue of nuanced effects to tackle, and Huang did a fine job with that. The Chopin set was at times expressive, and at others could have benefited from a bit more emotion (No. 15).
Two Scarlatti sonatas in f minor (K. 387 and K. 519) allowed Pavel Yeletskly to vary his articulation in striking ways and make them into true piano pieces rather than just transcriptions from the harpsichord. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Five pianists appeared on the Gartner Auditorium stage on Friday evening to complete the initial parade of twenty-eight competitors and bring the first round of the Cleveland International Piano Competition to a very interesting conclusion.
26-year-old Wenbin Jin from China brought the two sides of Robert Schumann’s personality — the passionate represented by Florestan, the poetic by Eusebius — to life with an evocative performance of the Fantasiestücke, op. 12. His admirable playing (both poetic and passionate) was mitigated by his tendency to play repeated material in exactly the same way — lingering on the first notes of phrases, pausing before the last, applying rubato in identical spots — so that his expressiveness sounded formulaic rather than spontaneous. His grand conception of Ende vom Lied was appropriately valedictory. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The Cleveland International Piano Competition got off to a strong start on Wednesday afternoon in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. If the other twenty-three contestants can match the quality of the first five who played, this should prove to be a very interesting eleven days.
24-year old Ruoyu Huang from China was the lucky recipient of spot number one in the draw. He led off with nuanced performances of two Scarlatti sonatas (K. 45 and K. 17) that showed off his fleet passage work and clarity of touch. A Chopin set (the first 12 Preludes, Etude in e, op. 25/5 and Ballade in G, op. 23/1) had both fine and uneven moments. Some of the preludes fluctuated in tempo beyond an expressive rubato, and Chopin’s interesting harmonic progressions sometimes went unheralded. The Ballade, though exciting, became episodic and nearly Lisztian in scale. [Read more…]