Indianapolis Competition Supports 21st C. Violins Makers with Exhibit and Purchase
INDIANAPOLIS - While jury members listened to the top violinists of a new generation at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, a another effort was happening simultaneously, to identify the finest violins created so far this century.
The Indianapolis competition's 21st Century Violin Search, announced last spring, attracted submissions from 45 luthiers from the United States, Canada, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
The stated goal of the search was to identify several violins that the competition would purchase to be loaned to current competition laureates for a period of four years as part of their prize. The competition already owns the 1683 “ex-Gingold” Stradivarius, so that addition would start a collection for the competition. The unstated goal was to support the work of modern violin makers, whose instruments been gaining in reputation, with many calling the 21st century a new "Golden Era" of violin-making. The selection process put the violins in the hands of concert violinists, IVCI jury members and competition participants, who blind-tested and ranked the instruments over the course of the 17-day competition. Keep reading...
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REVIEW: Indianapolis Competition Finals: Shannon Lee, Luke Hsu and Anna Lee
INDIANAPOLIS - Excitement was in the air on Saturday night at the Hilbert Circle Theatre downtown, where the last three of six Finalists in the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis would perform their Romantic and Post-Romantic Concertos in a concert that took place right before the judges were to announce the winners of the 17-day quadrennial competition. (Find that announcement and the final placement of the laureates here.)
Before the concert began, I chatted with a couple sitting next to me in the balcony, who had traveled from Los Angeles to attend the concerts. They were carefully scoring every violinist for every performance, and the margins in their programs were filled with handwritten notes and numbers. Another couple, behind me, had traveled from Fort Worth for some of the concerts and said that next time, they hoped to simply come for the entire competition. It would seem that "The Indianapolis" has become something of a pilgrimage for violin lovers in North America!
On Saturday audience members were treated to a second night of varied repertoire, with Shannon Lee playing the Walton Concerto for Violin; Luke Hsu the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and Anna Lee the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, all with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The other finalists, Richard Lin; Risa Hokamura and Ioana Cristina Goicea, had performed on Friday, read the review and find the videos here. Keep reading...
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Unlocking Talent Through Hard Work
I have met numerous musical colleagues, married to each other, who brushed off the idea that their own musical talent may have rubbed off on their children. These professionals, many of them orchestra players, tend to downplay their own level of talent because the music business has a way of humbling us all. Even those who have a warm, generous tone and can sight read with ease wonder why they can’t do more, or, as crazy as it sounds, even do it at all.
I love the idea of talent, that something in us eases the process that defines music. When I first played in an orchestra at the age of eight, my ear rang while the music swirled around me. Some elements of talent were at play. However, when I played out of tune as I crossed strings, the talent I needed was missing. Some children saw the fingerboard as a series of evenly spaced grids; they had the talent that was hiding from me. Keep reading...
