Winners named in Cooper Piano Competition

July 21, 2018 by Daniel Hathaway

Following the final round of the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall on Friday evening, the judges announced the first, second, and third-place winners. Prizes were awarded by Thomas and Evon Cooper.

First prize of $20,000 went to Tony Yun, (left, 17) of Toronto, Canada, who played Tchaikovsky’s first concerto. Kai-Min Chang (17) of Changhua County, Taiwan, took home the second prize of $10,000, and Yunchan Lim (14) of Siheung-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea was awarded the third prize of $5,000. Chang and Lim had played Chopin’s first and second concertos with the Orchestra.

Earlier, Yun and Lim had tied for the Audience Award following the Recital Round at Oberlin, which gave each of them an additional prize of $500. All three winners also received full-tuition scholarships to the Oberlin Conservatory.

About Daniel Hathaway

Daniel Hathaway founded ClevelandClassical.com in September, 2008, after a thirty-one year tenure as music director of Cleveland’s Trinity Cathedral, where he founded the Wednesday Noon Brownbag Concert Series and Trinity Chamber Orchestra. A graduate of Harvard College and the Episcopal Divinity School, he also studied historical musicology at Princeton and Harvard Universities. Before coming to Cleveland in 1977, he served as head of humanities at the Sunset Hill School in Kansas City and as head of arts at Groton School in Massachusetts. In Cleveland, he has served on the music staff of Cleveland Opera, Great Lakes Theater Festival, and the faculty of Laurel School. As an organist, Hathaway has played recitals in the U.S., England, France, Germany, and Austria. He team-teaches Music Journalism at Oberlin College and Conservatory and is a member of the Music Critics Association of North America.

Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts return with plenty of festive cheer (Dec. 11)

by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — If the twinkling lights, leafy green garlands and festive poinsettias didn’t already clue you in, the holidays have arrived at Severance Music Center. ‘Tis the season for annual traditions — including The Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts, which began on Wednesday evening.

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[Read on…]

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by Stephanie Manning

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The Opera, which was also presented at Oberlin’s Finney Chapel two days earlier, is based on the 1831 autobiography of Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, the only such work written by an enslaved person during their enslavement, and the only such document written in Arabic.

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