Competitions in General

Musical competitions can be fun to watch and enjoy, as long as one is not too passionately or obsessively involved/interested in the official final results or ranking. For my musical journal, I had some of my very first concerts from competition participants. I still remember the piano and violin recital of two young Chinese musicians back in 1984 (or 1983?) who were about to leave Beijing to participate in some international competition. I don't remember their name, and I don't remember the pieces they played, but all I remembered was the generic "competitor" that I have seen later on in other competitions. Very, thin, artistic nervousness/sensitivity, and technical command of their instruments.

I did enjoy the various competitions held at the University of Maryland, including William Kapell Piano competition, and Maryanne Anderson Vocal competition. I think I had the perfect recipe for my enjoyment their, because I wasn't paying any attention to the results at all, but concentrating on enjoying the music. This is due, at least partially, to the fact of the so-called "judge concerts", or the concerts/recitals help around the competition by the member of the judge panel. I got to listen to some famous pianist that way. And, what a bargain, free tickets for any University of Maryland students with a summer activity card.

After I moved to Dallas in 1995, I have followed Van Cliburn Piano Competition, due to the proximity to Fort Worth. The one I attended the most was the 2009 competition, where I heard all the finalists, not all their concerts though, because I heard some of them in other round. But I was almost completely surprised by the final results I watched live via webcast, where Nobuyuki Tsujii (Japan, blind) and Haochen Zhang (China) tied for the gold medal and Yeol Eum Son (Korea) got the silver medal. Of the three the only one I agree was Zhang, who played Mozart with real feeling and flair. My personal favorite Di Wu and some critics' favorite Yevgeni Bozhanov were both left out. As for Tsujii, I have tremendous admiration for him, like most of the audience, for overcoming his physical limitations and connect/communicate through music, but I think in this case, a double-blind judgment is probably more fair because it would remove people's emotional and other non-musical elements from the judgment.

Met Audition Final 2011 (3/13/2011)

I had the opportunity to witness the true highlight of my competition type of concerts when I attended the Metropolitan Opera 2011 National Council Auditions "Grand Finals Concert" on Sunday March 13, 2011. There were eight finalists, 3 sopranos and the rest range from baritone to bass-baritone to bass. Curiously enough, there wasn't even one tenor among the finalist, which was strange giving the role tenors play in most operas. I guess, somehow to balance it by the organizers, the host (not performing) was Joyce DiDonato, a mezzo, and the guest (performing) was Lawrence Brownlee, a tenor, who not only provided procedural support for the final but also fireworks after the finalists' performance but before the announcement of winners. Here is a run down of my personal (biased) impressions of the singers as finalists (or finalists as singers), in the order they appeared: Lawrence Brownlee, a winner 10 years ago, is becoming my favorite tenor of the young generation. He sang two aria, after the finalists finished theirs, and the judges were meeting to decide the winners: Bizet's Les Pecheurs de Perles, the heavenly aria "Je crois entrendre encore", which I loved before this, and love even more after this. It was beautiful, and even magical, showing off his artistic side perfectly, an aria with heart, with feeling, and totally convincing. The second aria was the acrobatic showcase for tenors, the so-called high-C showpiece, "Ah! mes amis" from "La Fille du Regiment" by Donizetti. I watched Pavarotti and Alfredo Kraus doing this on video, but this is the first time I heard it live. A lot of fireworks, and it really sparkled! It also goes to show, that finalists, and winners, still have some distance to go to develop into real singing artists.

Well, I took full advantage of this opportunity to play the ranking game. Because of my Cliburn experience above, where I ignored audience response, I did take into account of the audience response at the Met this time:

Well, the official winners are (5 winners, in alphabetical order) So, you see, my judgment is not too much off the mark. Of the ones who didn't win, I'm sure my #3 (Deanna Breiwick) will have a successful career because of her beautiful voice and her intelligence shown in the choice of songs. She's the youngest soprano (24, while Johnson is 28), and probably the judges were thinking "she'll have her chances later".
Prepared by Jeff Tian (tian@engr.smu.edu).
Created March 15, 2011. Last update March 19, 2011.
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