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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: Semifinal Round, Session 1

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By Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland, OH — August 2, 2011

After Monday evening’s jury decision that took eighteen pianists out of the running — among them, perplexingly, at least three superb musicians who had played some of the most shapely, intelligent and coherent performances of anyone in the first two rounds — the Semifinal Round should demand that the eight remaining contestants be held to extremely high standards of interpretation. Everyone who has marched up to the Steinway this week has demonstrated extraordinary and reliable technique, but not everyone has proved that they have the analytical skills to put that technique to use in shaping cogent performances of the repertory they’ve chosen to play.

The strange patterns that can result from intentional randomness lined up four Asian contestants for the two sessions on Tuesday. [Read more…]

Cleveland International Piano Competition: eight advance to the Semi-finals

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By Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland, OH — August 1, 2011

The jury has selected eight pianists to advance to the Semi-final round of the Cleveland International Piano Competition. The following names were read from the stage of the Bolton Theater at the Cleveland Play House tonight at 10:45 pm by jury chairman Peter Frankl, following the sixth session of the second round. Each will play one hour recitals during the afternoon and evening sessions on August 2 and 3, and four finalists will play concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall on August 5 and 6.

Tuesday, August 2 at 1pm*

Ms. Kyu Yeon Kim (25, Korea)

Mr. Yunjie Chen (30, China)

Tuesday, August 2 at 7 pm

Mr. Jae-Weon Huh (24, Korea)

Ms. EunAe Lee (23, Korea)

Wednesday, August 3 at 1pm*

Mr. Eric Zuber (26, USA)

Mr. Alexey Chernov (28, Russia)

Wednesday, August 3 at 7 pm

Mr. Alexander Schimpf (29, Germany)

Mr. Mateusz Borowiak (23, UK/Poland)

* please note the corrected start time.

Cleveland International Piano Competition: Round 2, Session 2

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland, OH — July 30, 2011

We went into this evening’s session eager to hear four pianists build on their achievements in the first round. We came away wondering what on earth had possessed them to attack their repertory so heavy-handedly.

Mr. Shinnosuke Inugai (29, Japan) led off with a promising and energetic A-Flat Prelude and Fugue (WTC I) with good cadential gestures in the prelude and clear counterpoint in the fugue. The two Chopin Scherzos (op. 39 and 54) that followed were curiously muscular rather than humorous and poetic. There were some nice touches (clear textures, poignant middle sections in the second and fine right hand passage work) but erratic tempos and aggressive drives toward climaxes obscured the architecture of the pieces. Atsuhiko Gondai’s Transient Bell (2009) was full of metallic effects and crystalline meanderings in the extreme treble as well as gratuitous piano tricks (too many full keyboard glissandi). Mr. Inugai played it enthusiastically, but the sonic effect was numbing. [Read more…]

Cleveland International Piano Competition Round 1:,Session 2

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By Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland, OH — July 27, 2011

Four more pianists gave us first examples of their playing this evening — two of whom actually updated our impressions from when we first heard them in 2009.

Mr. Shinnosuke Inugai (29, Japan) immediately seized our attention with a dramatic and highly profiled performance of Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata, op. 57. Violent contrasts, explosive gestures and unrelenting — well, passion — marked the first movement and inspired applause from an audience that knew they shouldn’t clap then but wanted to anyway. In the second movement, Mr. Inugai relieved the tension with playful dotted rhythms that sounded almost frivolous after what had gone before. His fleet fingerwork and skillful layering of material brought the finale to a resounding conclusion. Perhaps his reading of Chopin’s Etude in A-flat, op. 10, no. 10 was more articulate than dreamy and poetic, but the Beethoven was still in our ears and the second piece seemed almost unnecessary. [Read more…]

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