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Cliburn Blog
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The award winners for the sixth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs are… Richard Rodzinski First Prize: CHRISTOPHER SHIH, Physician (Ellicott City, MD) $2,000 cash; Cliburn custom spurs, courtesy of LUSKEY’S/ Ryons Western Stores; Pair of Tickets and Official Guest Status to the Fourteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (2013) Second Prize: CLARK GRIFFITH, Database [...]
1 year ago | |
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Maybe that mythological mixture would be more at home in Xena: Warrior Princess than in a discussion of the final round of the 2011 IPCOA, but somehow the degree of virtuosity and the quality of music-making on display this afternoon invite superhuman comparisons. There was Dominic Piers Smith’s battle with the many-headed Romantic hydra, which [...]
1 year ago | |
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I finally had some time to sit down in the auditorium and listen to a few of the competition performances over the past couple days. Like a lot of these competitors, playing the piano is something that I always loved and pursued. I don’t even remember a time when I did not know how to play the piano. And [...]
1 year ago | |
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Already the six finalists have been announced and the final round of this year’s IPCOA is just hours away. Four of the finalists I expected: Clark Griffith, whose nearly pedal-less selections from Bach’s Goldberg Variations had me on the edge of my seat; Ken Iisaka, who made it to the finals in the 2007 IPCOA [...]
1 year ago | |
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The six finalists of the sixth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs are: Barry Coutinho, Family Physician (Pittsburgh, PA) Clark Griffith, Database Programmer (ret.) (Fort Worth, TX) Ken Iisaka, Internet Start-Up Entrepreneur & Consultant (Mill Valley, CA) Jane Gibson King, Homemaker (Provo, UT) Christopher Shih, Physician (Ellicott City, Maryland) Dominic Piers Smith, Team Leader in [...]
1 year ago | |
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Disclaimer: I’m writing this blog entry while having a snack in the Press Room, so perhaps it’s inevitable that food would provide the organizing concept. When I read that IPCOA competitor Christopher Shih was a gastroenterologist and saw his proposed program for the three rounds, I couldn’t help but think that the two were connected. [...]
1 year ago | |
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In fact, well over 12,000 unique hits to the live streaming broadcast of the IPCOA—that was the number announced by Steve Cumming as yesterday’s evening session got underway. I couldn’t help but think of the well over 12,000 unique hits that the stalwart Steinway in Ed Landreth Hall might register were it to keep count [...]
1 year ago | |
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If each of the competitors in today’s first semifinal round has a “double life”—banker-pianist, sports car designer-pianist, etc.—I also have a “double life” as a listener. Part of me anticipates and relishes in the pieces themselves; another part is bedazzled by pianistic pyrotechnics, by the sheer physical and mental accomplishment of the performers. These two [...]
1 year ago | |
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We have as much fun backstage working with the competitors and preparing for the performances as the audience does listening to all this great music. There are a lot of people working behind the scenes to make sure things go smoothly and the competitors have a great performance:   Backstage moms Louise Canafax and Kathie Cummins [...]
1 year ago | |
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Joseph Mercuri—after some very sensitive lyrical playing in the Chopin Ballade No. 1, which unfortunately ran a slippery slope in the fast sections, we will be treated to the Ravel Sonatine and the Presto movement to Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata. Hopefully, nerves will be settled and control of fast tempi will be the order of the [...]
1 year ago | |
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