My thoughts on the 2013 International Van Cliburn Piano Competition

February 18, 2013

Time waits for no one.  It is 2013, and another edition of the International Van Cliburn Piano Competition is underway.. 

About this time four years ago, in 2009, 20-years old Nobuyuki Tsujii traveled from Japan to appear in the screening round of the 13th Van Cliburn Competition, in Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.A.  He performed the entire 12 etudes of Chopin's Op. 10 on a stage at the Texas Christian University (TCU), reducing the audience to tears (see here).

On this very day, that same university is hosting yet another Cliburn Competition screening competition.  Every four years, these "auditions"  are held at locations all over the world, for hundreds of selected candidates to vie for a spot in the actual competition.

)

This May 24, the 14th Van Cliburn International competition will begin in Bass Hall, Fort Forth, the venue that we have come to know so well from watching the Cliburn Competition documentary "A surprise in Texas".    Once again, there will be live streaming of the competition's fanfare and performances.  For two weeks, competitors and judges will convene.  Performers will be spotlighted.   Blogs will be posted.  Favorites will be picked.  Hearts will be won.  Tears will be shed.  And, by June, the gold-medal reign of Nobu (and his co-winner Mr. Hoachen Zhang) will be over.

Bass Hall, Fort Worth, Texas, image via Internet link

Although Nobu is currently still listed on the Winners Tours page of the Cliburn Foundation, the promotion by the Foundation ( as part of the prizes for the Competition winners) will stop by June.   Whenever a new edition of a competition comes around, the stagecoach that has been carrying the latest winner will turn into a pumpkin, and the winner  -- as so many piano competition winners before them -- will be left on his own device to forge his fate in the brutally competitive world of performing arts.  The overwhelming majority of them will not be remembered for long (see here).

Thankfully, Nobu will not suffer that fate, at least for the foreseeable future.  For Nobu, the biggest prize of the Cliburn victory is that it catapulted him to the top of the pianist rank in his native country Japan, seemingly overnight.  Nobu Fever erupted there in the wake of his Cliburn victory, and has never lost steam.  The popularity that Nobu has enjoyed in Japan is unprecedented for a classical musician, I have been told. 

And,  thanks to the documentaries by Peter Rosen (producer of A surprise in Texas and Nobuyuki Tsujii live at the Carnegie Hall), videos on YouTube  and DVDs by EuroArts Music,  Nobu has earned his place elsewhere in the world as well.  This April, Nobu will perform in Italy with conductor Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, after which he will tour Japan with his long-time mentor Yutaka Sado and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.  In September, conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy will team up with Nobu and the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa (OEK) in Japan.  I am personally looking forward to Tsujii-san performing Beethoven's "Emperor" concerto and Mozart's "Coronation" concerto on his 2014 U.S. Tour with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

Nobu's childhood piano teacher, Mr. Masahiro Kawakami, wrote recently in  his blog:  ピアニスト辻井伸行は今年も相当に忙しそうです。きっと、アーティストとしては現在一番忙しく活動している人の一人でしょう。今後の活躍も期待しています。 (Pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii is likely to be fairly busy this year. Surely, he will be one of the people most busy working as an artist today. I also expect this to hold true in the future.)  Amen, Dr. K!

I am thankful to the Cliburn Competition for the spotlights that it shone so brightly on Nobu.   Looking back, I realize that it was by sheer luck that I became aware of the phenomenon of Nobuyuki Tsujii at all.    The truth is, I did not follow the 2009 competition as it took place.  Instead, I just happened to be home one fateful evening in fall 2010, with a small television turned on as background noise.  And it just so happened that the TV was tuned to a particular channel, which by sheer chance was showing the Cliburn documentary A surprise in Texas.  And, most fortuitous of all, my ears happened to perk up at one particular moment, catching that soul-stirring tone of Nobu's Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1.  The rest is history (see How I Caught the "Nobu Fever").

Life has changed for me, drastically, since then.  Nobu in particular and classical music in general have become a large part of my life.  I started playing the piano again.  I travel to see Nobu in performances.   So preoccupied am I that I no longer subscribe to television.  Nor have I watched another piano competition -- or any competition -- on television.    I have completely lost interest in repetitious competition shows.  

Ironically, the 13th Cliburn Competition, which brought Nobu into my life, may be the last piano competition that I pay attention to.  Looking into the minor controversy that came up when Nobu's gold medal was called to question by some people, I soon discovered the duplicity of piano competitions.  Here you will find a thread of discussion typical of the subject "Do piano competitions really matter?"  It didn't take me long to come to appreciate the saying, supposedly by composer-pianist Bela Bartok, that “Concours (competitions) are for horses, not for artists!” (see here).  

I do appreciate that competitions like the Cliburn is a necessity for some pianists who otherwise would have no opportunity to receive worldwide notice.  I wish these budding pianists well, but I am sorry to say that I do not feel compelled to support them by following the countless piano competitions that take place around the world.  For the same reason,  I don't feel obligated to support Cliburn winners other than Nobu, even though I am fully aware that the gold medal awarded to Nobu could easily have gone to them instead.  My heart has already been won by Mr. Tsujii.

So, with apologies to the Cliburn Foundation, I will not take part in the excitement of the upcoming 14th Van Cliburn International Competition.  Instead, I will continue to express my gratitude to the foundation through modest money contributions.   I applaud the Foundation's effort to promote classical piano music, and I hope you, my dear readers, will -- if you are so inclined -- tune in to the competition and enjoy it.

image via Internet link

http://bit.ly/VrO5K4