Violin News & Gossip, Op. 2, No. 41

July 2, 2006 at 5:09 PM

I’ve now received information about the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis competitors’ hometowns and educational institutions.

Just for fun, let’s look at them by enrollment in the major American schools. Many competitors also listed a second school; I indicate those in parentheses. Some people identified their home as being where the school is, despite being citizens of other countries. It’s no surprise that Curtis and Juilliard each claim eight competitors, more than any other school.

Boston University
Yevgeny Kutik, Pittsfield, MA (Juilliard)

Carnegie Mellon University
Eunice Keem, Northfield, IL
Daniela Shtereva, Pittsburgh (Louisiana State Univ.)

Cleveland Institute of Music
Jinjoo Cho, Seoul, Korea
Celeste Golden, Dallas (Curtis)
Liana Gourdjia, Switzerland (Moscow Central Music School)
Rachel Harding, Washington, MI

Curtis Institute of Music
Angelia Cho, Brookline, MA (New England)
David Coucheron, New York (Juilliard)
Bella Hristova, Bulgaria (University of Michigan Prep)
Stephanie Jeong, Philadelphia
Hye-Jin Kim, Philadelphia
Alexandra Osborne, Australia (Sydney Conservatorium)
Elena Urioste, North Wales, PA
Tien-Hsin Wu, Taipei, Taiwan (Juilliard)

The Juilliard School
Emilie-Anne Gendron, Glastonbury, CT
Augustin Hadelich, New York
Erin Keefe, New York (Curtis)
Miho Saegusa, New York (Yale)
Eric Silberger, Indianapolis (Indiana)
Yang Xu, El Monte, CA (Oberlin)
Saeka Matsuyama, New York
Howard Zhang, Los Angeles

Manhattan School of Music
Daniel Khalikov, Philadelphia (Toulouse Conservatoire)

New England Conservatory of Music
Korbinian Altenberger, Boston (Boston Conservatory)
Yura Lee, Boston (Indiana)

Additionally, some competitors list an American school as their secondary institution; here, the primary school follows in parentheses.

Elsa Grether, Paris – New England Conservatory (Conservas de Lausanne)
Anna Tifu, Cagliary, Italy – Curtis (Accademia Stauffer)
Yuuki Wong, Vienna – Oberlin Conservatory (Vienna Conservatory)
Dan Zhu, Brooklyn, NY – Mannes College of Music (Central Conservatory – Beijing)

That leaves just 21 of the 50 participants who do not claim affiliation with an American school. Japan is the country that has the most competitors without an American education (5/7). Of those, Maiko Enomoto and Yusuke Hayashi study at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. And Ryoko Yano identifies the Conservatoire National in Paris as her primary institution.

The other competitors typically list a leading school in their own country, like Shanghai Conservatory (Zhijong Wang), Prague Conservatory (Roman Patocka)and Sibelius Academy (Petteri Iivonen).

All in all, this sounds like an amazing group of violinists!

I’ll be posting the events schedule in a future column.

Other News

When one type of music gets supplanted by another, it is often classical music pushed out. Not so in Duluth this week. The Duluth News-Tribune reports: "Duluth's Fourth of July fireworks have a new opening act. Making an abrupt change to the event's tone, Fourth Fest organizers have abandoned the plan for a tropical-themed bash headlined by a reggae band. Instead, the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra will play Fourth Fest's traditional free pre-fireworks concert July 4."

The Rhode Island Philharmonic has gone from about $1 million in the hole to ending the year with a slight surplus and credits a benefit concert by Yo-Yo Ma as being a huge part of the changing tide: “The one event that kept the orchestra out of the red was the special benefit by cellist [Yo-Yo] Ma and two members of his Silk Road Project on March 7. The sold-out concert, with tickets going for as much as $1,000, netted about $240,000, which pushed an already robust annual fundraising effort way over the top."

Musicians of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra in Ontario have received an unusual honor. They are prominently portrayed on the cover of the new Thunder Bay Telephone Directory.

When Jeffrey Multer officially dons the title of concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra this fall, he will be occupying a newly endowed chair. The orchestra has announced a recent $500,000 gift from a Tampa couple to endow the Suzette McCune Berkman and Monroe E. Berkman Chair.

Walter Prystawski, the founding concertmaster of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada, has retired after 37 years. NACO Founding Conductor Mario Bernardi returned to the podium for Prystawski’s special farewell concerts last month, which opened with Prystawski and Principal Second Violin Donnie Deacon as soloists for Bach's Concerto for Two Violins.

From Nicholas Tavani
Posted on July 2, 2006 at 9:39 PM

watch Celeste Golden. She's got an amazing sound, very musically mature, and is the kind of player who makes you forget about technical things when you watch her.

From Jude Ziliak
Posted on July 3, 2006 at 4:26 AM

Go Yevgeny!

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 3, 2006 at 4:37 AM

I'm voting for Rachel Harding, because she's got a regular name.

All symphony orchestras should volunteer to do the 4th of July gig for free. Good business too, I'd think.

From Nicholas Tavani
Posted on July 3, 2006 at 5:04 PM

Rachel is actually a very good person to vote for - she's a completely solid player with very refined and beautiful playing.

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 3, 2006 at 5:23 PM

Yes. She was at Montreal and I looked into her then because she was one of the oldest. These are her last competitions I guess.

From Bram Heemskerk
Posted on July 4, 2006 at 10:32 AM

Darcey you said: "The other competitors typically list a leading school in their own country, like Shanghai Conservatory (Zhijong Wang), ...and Royal Academy of Music – Netherlands (Simone Lamsma.
Simone Lamsma,(I played Chachaturian with her), born in the Netherlands, studied mainly in England on the Royal Academy of Music in LONDON since 1997, according to this website: http://www.londonsoloists.com/simone_lamsma.htm

From Darcy Lewis
Posted on July 5, 2006 at 3:57 PM

Thanks, Bram. You are correct.

Darcy

From Frank-Michael Fischer
Posted on July 6, 2006 at 3:52 AM

Roman Patocka (correct spelling: Roman Patočka) studies with Stephan Picard (http://www.hfm-berlin.de/deutsch/biografien/picard.php) at the Berlin Academy of Music. And he left Prague Conservatory in 1999 already, from then on till 2005 he studied at the the Prague Music Academy (which is positioned at higher educational level than the Conservatory).

He actually lives in Germany and is heavily supported through German foundations. Since (because of his Czech citizenship) he enrolled as Czech Roman obviously thought stressing his Czech part of education might help.

FMF

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Violin News & Gossip, Op. 2, No. 41

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