Month: June 2022

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Pianists from Korea, Russia and Ukraine win 2022 Cliburn

Pianists from Korea, Russia and Ukraine were awarded gold, silver and bronze medals in the 2022 Cliburn competition.

Eighteen-year-old Yunchan Lim, from South Korea, won the Gold Medal. Anna Geniushene, 31, of Russia, won the Silver Medal, and  Dmytro Choni, 28, of Ukraine won the Bronze Medal. The winners received cash awards of $100,000 for gold, $50,000 for silver, and $25,000 for bronze.

The Ukraine war seemed to create a dilemma for the Cliburn, which is held in Fort Worth, Texas every four years, because of widespread pressure to cut times with Russia. However, the competition honors Van Cliburn, who won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958, an event that was understood to show that art can bridge political divides even during periods of high tension, and so Russian pianists were allowed to compete this year despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The awards ceremony was preceded by the Ukrainian national anthem, played the Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko, a previous winner of the Cliburn. Reporting on this year’s competition has been somewhat overshadowed by the specter of the war.

The Ukrainian winner Choni has been living and studying in Austria since 2015, and Anna Geniushene, who has been critical of the war, left Russian after the war began and has been living in Lithuania.

Profiles of each winner and YouTube videos of the preliminary, quarter-final and semifinal rounds are at the following links:

Yunchan Lim (Gold Medal, South Korea) https://cliburn.org/?performer=yunchan-lim

Anna Geniushene (Silver Medal, Russia) https://cliburn.org/?performer=anna-geniushene

Dmytro Choni (Bronze Medal, Ukraine) https://cliburn.org/?performer=dmytro-choni  

Additional links:

SIXTEENTH VAN CLIBURN INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION – 2022 CLIBURN WINNERS https://cliburn.org/2022-competitors/

At Cliburn Competition, Pianists From South Korea, Russia and Ukraine Triumph (New York Times)

Pianist, 18, from South Korea wins Van Cliburn competition (Washington Post) https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/pianist-18-from-south-korea-wins-van-cliburn-competition/2022/06/19/885067f8-f01a-11ec-ac16-8fbf7194cd78_story.html

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Odesa Opera House Opens Amidst War

Roger Cohen, Paris Bureau Chief of the New York Times, reported that the Odesa Opera reopened for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, “asserting civilization against the barbarism unleashed from Moscow.” Odesa is Ukraine’s third-largest city, a major seaport located in the southwest part of the country.

The opera house opened in 1887 and was most recently renovated in 2007. It replaced a structure destroyed by fire that had opened in 1810. The horseshoe-shaped hall has excellent acoustics.

Before the performance, concertgoers were instructed on seeking shelter, should sirens sound during the performance.

The opera’s chief conductor, Viacheslav Chernukho-Volich, led the performance, which opened with Ukraine’s national anthem, and included selections from Romeo and Juliet, Tosca, and Turandot as well as music by twentieth-century Odesa-born composer Kostiantyn Dankevych.

The opera received permission from the military to stage the performance, but the entire country remains within reach of Russian missiles, and the theater was only one-third full because of security restrictions. Conductor Chernukho-Volich observed, “Could Mr. Putin strike central Odesa? ‘Anyone capable of Bucha, of Mariupol, of what is happening down the road in Mykolaiv, is capable of anything,’ he said. ‘That is what we have learned.’”

Odesa’s mayor, Gennadiy Trukhanov, explained, “It is important to show that Odesa is alive, that Ukraine is alive, that we want to live and create, while the way of the Russian occupiers is killing and death.”

PHOTO CREDITS: Alex Levitsky & Dmitry Shamatazhi, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Odesa Opera House Reopens, Defying Putin’s Barbarism (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/world/europe/odesa-opera-ukraine-russia.html

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Cliburn Competition Brings Together Pianists from Countries Divided by the Ukraine War

Today is the final day for the semifinal round of the Cliburn Competition. One American remains among the twelve semifinalists, along with one from Ukraine, two from Russia and one from Belarus, four South Koreans, one pianist each from Japan and China, and one from France and China.

The competition is named for the American pianist Van Cliburn, who won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958, during the Cold War. As an article in the New York Times reports, Van Cliburn’s victory “was seen as a sign that art could transcend politics,” and so this year its organizers felt it appropriate to invite participants from Russia and its ally Belarus, despite pressure to exclude their participation. Many of the Russian participants live outside Russia and some have expressed opposition to the war. Russian pianist Ilya Shmukler, 27, is reported to have said he that at times felt guilty about the invasion: “The key words for me,” he said, “are shame and responsibility.”

According to the Fort Worth-based website Culture Map, 28-year-old Ukrainian Dmytro Choni and 23-year-old American Clayton Stephenson are audience favorites. Only one woman advanced to this round, Russian Anna Geniushene, who lives in Lithuania. The Times reported that in order to prepare for performing a series of Brahms Ballades, “she said… she thought of suffering in Ukraine.”

Profiles of each participant and links to performances posted to YouTube are available on the Cliburn website (below).

Six finalists will be announced later today, with final round performances beginning on Tuesday, June 14.

Links:

Russian and Ukrainian Pianists Meet in Texas at Cliburn Competition (NY Times) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/arts/music/cliburn-piano-competition-texas-ukraine-war.html

12 semifinalists make the cut in 2022 Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth (Culture Map) https://fortworth.culturemap.com/news/arts/06-06-22-12-semifinalists-van-cliburn-international-piano-competition-bass-hall-fwso-nicholas-mcgegan/#slide=0

The Cliburn 2022 (includes live performances, competition schedules, & links to profiles) https://cliburn.org/