Patterico's Pontifications

5/27/2009

The 2009 Van Cliburn Piano Competition

Filed under: Current Events — DRJ @ 11:07 am



[Guest post by DRJ]

And now for something completely different.

The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition — The Cliburn — is an international piano competition for promising pianists that takes place every 4 years in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s named for Harvey Lavan “Van” Cliburn, Jr., an American pianist who won the first International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow as a young pianist during the height of the Cold War.

The 2009 Cliburn competition began May 22 and ends June 7, and includes preliminary, semifinal and final rounds. This year’s event hosts 29 young pianists from all over the world. The contestants play solo recitals in each round and also perform with a string quartet in the semifinal round.

In past years, many contestants were from Russia but recent competitions have seen more contestants from Asia, including this year’s crowd favorite — a shaggy-haired 20-year-old from Japan named Nobuyuki Tsujii. Tsujii made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 12, has released 2 CDs, and has performed with several of Japan’s leading orchestras and in the Czech Republic, Russia and Taiwan.

Although Tsujii’s professional parents preferred Western pop by Whitney Houston, Barry Manilow and Stevie Wonder, they sensed their son was interested in classical music when he was 2. He started piano lessons at age 4 and won his first competition at 6. However, unlike virtually all classically-trained pianists, Tsujii “plays by listening to others, either live or on a recording, memorizes the notes, then hones and re-hones his own take — muscular or delicate, depending on the music.”

Tsujii’s Cliburn debut was Saturday night where he impressed the crowd and the competition’s namesake, Van Cliburn:

“He was absolutely miraculous,” Cliburn said. “His performance had the power of a healing service. It was truly divine.”

Tuesday night, Tsujii was chosen as one of 12 semifinalists who will compete in solo recitals and perform with the Takacs Quartet. While Tsujii has performed with quartets and orchestras before, it is a challenge because he must rely on unusual cues such as listening to the breathing of the violinist or asking the musician to “cue him with barely audible sniffles.”

If you’re wondering why, it’s because Nobuyuki Tsujii has been blind since birth.

Tsujii’s 2009 preliminary recital can be viewed here but there is a fee. The semifinal and final competitions are free and will be webcast live at Cliburn TV. The semifinals begin today and conclude Saturday, May 31, 2009. The finals are June 3-4, 2009.

— DRJ

17 Responses to “The 2009 Van Cliburn Piano Competition”

  1. Thank you, DRJ. This ignert uneducated uncultured hillbilly redneck rube loves this kind of event. That young man is so gifted.

    JD (241e9b)

  2. Thank you for reading the complete post, JD, and I’m glad you enjoyed Tsujii’s story. I know I did.

    DRJ (2901e6)

  3. Cliburn’s comments were interesting to me, as a theologian, because he has always considered himself a clairvoyant. Even as a boy he was credited with making prophetic statements. I don’t know what his religious affiliation is, if any. But I’d love to know more about how the performance seemed like a healing service – whether anyone present was knocked unconscious for instance. 😉

    Gesundheit (47b0b8)

  4. My daughter will not be entering this year. She has prior commitments. She will be giving her first piano recital this same Sunday, May 31, at Riverside, Illinois.

    nk (e71733)

  5. Gesundheit,

    I recall Van Cliburn vividly from my childhood but I don’t really know much about him as a person. There might be something more about his comment in the Cliburn Blog but I didn’t find it in a brief search.

    On a related point, the reviewers who write the blog were not as impressed with Tsujii as they were with other contestants. He’s clearly a fan favorite rather than the reviewers’ favorite, but he obviously touched Cliburn on some level … if not as a virtuoso then spiritually at least.

    DRJ (2901e6)

  6. nk,

    What fun that will be (except for the nervousness part). I know she will knock ’em dead.

    DRJ (2901e6)

  7. That’s funny, nk! Good for her. My twin sis and I played a duet at our last piano recital, age 10, of Offenbach’s ‘Tales from Hoffmann’, and got such an enormous and simultaneous fit of the giggles that we had tears streaming down our faces. Dad literally put his jacket over his head as he couldn’t stop laughing at us, and our mother could be seen continually craning her neck to gauge the distance to the exit for a clean getaway!

    I love the Cliburn competition and am glad you posted this, DRJ, because in the midst of such depressing politics, it’s good to know beauty is still being created and upheld in the world.

    Dana (aedf1d)

  8. Growing up we used to go to this every chance we got. It’s one of the things I miss about Fort Worth.

    Patterico (9f44c0)

  9. If you are interested and online now, Tsujii is currently practicing with the quartet. You can see it free online here.

    DRJ (2901e6)

  10. I’m so impressed with Tsujii after seeing him play with the quartet. It’s hard to imagine how he can manage the intricate fingering and spreads without missing a note; memorize every note of every piece; and coordinate with the quartet. Tsujii may not be the best performer but he is really something special.

    DRJ (2901e6)

  11. It’s over now but did anyone else see Tsujii’s practice session?

    DRJ (2901e6)

  12. Looking forward to seeing this. My favorite competition was the Tchaikovsky from 1986. It was shown on PBS and I was lucky enough to record it. Incredible.

    harkin (f92f52)

  13. I did not see your comments until too late. Thank Allah for youtube.

    JD (a0edad)

  14. The daughter did great. Strictly from memory, too.

    nk (cba3e7)

  15. What a great moment. Congratulations to your daughter and to her parents. I hope you got a video or lots of photos.

    DRJ (2901e6)

  16. I agree strongly with the WSJ review that the jurys awards were the weakest part of the entire competition.  It must be discouraging to the competitors to have such a poor evaluation process be made.

    GERALD REAMS,M.D. (7618a1)

  17. Subjective artistic evaluations are one of the great disappointments of the Modern/Post-Modern period.

    AD - RtR/OS! (15fd5c)


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