Whoa... no third place winner...!!
That Mariangela Vacatello did not even rate at least 3rd place is a pity and a shame. I'm really shocked.
Zhang is a solid pick and musically a typical "Cliburn" 1st prize winner. I was more than just a little reminded by his playing of Alex Kobrin (1st prize winner of the last Cliburn). That said, it will be interesting to see how things pan out. At 19 and the youngest of the pack it would be easy to dismiss him as a less than mature pianist. But you'd be wrong.
Zhang is a musically safe choice and yet for the sheer fact of his age a surprising one. He was one of the pianists I thought was someone to keep an eye on, and I'm not disappointed. I look forward to hearing more from him, especially more daring and originality!
Tsujii on the other is an inexlicable pick for first prize -technically there was nothing 1st prize worthy about it to my ears compared to the others. I'd have pegged him for 2nd prize.
I've no regrets that Bozhanov was sent away without a prize. All that cartoonish mugging for the cameras got old and quick!
I really can't come up with a good reason for Son reaching 2nd place. Inexplicable.
Official Results:
Gold: Haochen Zhang, Nobuyuki Tsujii
Silver: Yeol Eum Son
Crystal: not awarded
Prize for Best Chamber music performance: Evgeni Bozhanov and Yeol Eum Son (tie)
Prize for Best performance of a new work: Nobuyuki Tsujii
Discretionary awards: Alessandro Deljavan, Eduard Kunz and Lukas Vondracek
WTB's own choices if I were handing out the prizes:
Gold: Zhang
Silver: Tsuji
Crystal: Vacatello
1 comment:
This was a strange competition result.
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