Up-and-comers ready to tickle the ivory
Vancouver Recital Society has lineup of musicians, including winner of U.S. competition
The Vancouver Recital Society has an extra-strong focus on young pianists this fall, starting with Yekwon Sunwoo, who took first place at the 2017 Van Cliburn Competition. VRS founder Leila Getz attended and couldn’t be happier with the result. Last week we chatted about Sunwoo, competitions and pianists in general.
Q First of all, what’s the Cliburn, and how did it get going?
A It’s one of the earlier, major, international competitions. It was founded by a group of music teachers in the Fort Worth area of Texas, in honour of Van Cliburn’s famous 1958 win at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, at the age of 23. (Van Cliburn (1934-2013) has been a sort of secular saint of young pianists ever since, and this year he’s the subject of a fascinating cultural biography, Nigel Cliff ’s Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story: How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War.) I don’t have vast personal experience of running around piano competitions, but they are certainly a platform on which young musicians get to be heard. They asked me to attend and serve on the advisory committee for the young pianists.
Q What did those youngsters want to know from a seasoned presenter?
A They all seemed to be obsessed with the same two questions: how can they find management and what repertoire should they learn? I really take my hat off to the Cliburn, because the jury members were all fantastic. And they have wonderful seminars and lectures going on around the performances.
Q Some of us have a certain, well, healthy suspicion about the whole competition system, which is fraught with issues.
A This is what fascinates me about the Cliburn: I sit in the audience with professionals like me, and also the general public who come just as listeners. And the most noticeable thing is that everyone has very strong opinions, and that nobody agrees with anyone else — sometimes almost to the point of fist fights! This year, from my perspective at least, from the first moment Yekwon came out and played his first note, in terms of preparation and determination, he was head and shoulders above all the rest. And when he played a Schubert sonata, I closed my eyes and heard the interpretive genius of Richard Goode, who was one of Yekwon’s teachers.
Q Actually Sunwoo has already delighted the VRS audience when he played with young violinist Benjamin Beilmann last February. What’s he going to do for his solo debut?
A He offered me a fairly eccentric program, and I said, Oh, that’s perfect for my subscribers! I really believe in our Vancouver audience, which is more adventurous than most audiences, and so I always go for an interesting choice of repertoire.
Q What other young pianists are lined up?
A We have Zhang Zuo, Oct. 15 and George Li, Oct. 22: a pianist every Sunday for the next little while. It’s an accidental little mini-festival of brilliant young pianists. A lot of the really good young talents today are pianists. The difficulties start, Vancouver being where it is, with trying to convince people to come to this part of the world, and then trying to get the dates in the theatres.
Q Is there ever a risk of just too many piano players?
A You really shouldn’t compare pianists casually. They can be so different, and so illuminating.