Violin News & Gossip, Op. 3, No. 52

July 2, 2007 at 12:48 AM

The results are in for the violin portion of the Tchaikovsky Competition:

1st place: Mayuko Kamio (Japan)

2nd place: Nikita Borisoglebsky (Russia)

3rd place: Yuki Manuela Janke (Germany)

4th place: Soyoung Yoon (Republic of Korea)

5th place: Hyon-Su Shin (Republic of Korea)

6th place: Zhijiong Wang (China)

The Japan Times ran a brief article on Mayuko Kamio that, among other things, enumerates how many Japanese violinists have won this competition.

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While this is not violin-related news, it’s impossible for any musician not to feel sadness at an Associated Press article datelined 6/27: “Beverly Sills is gravely ill with cancer. She is currently in a Manhattan hospital suffering from a broken rib after a bad fall, her publicist Edgar Vincent tells Reuters. ‘It's grave. This whole matter of this discovery of cancer has been just about four weeks now. Up until that she had no idea,’ says Vincent. Sills had cancer surgery in 1974, which is said to have been successful. She is a non-smoker. The 78-year-old retired soprano and administrative power house resigned as chairman of the Met Opera two years ago. She remains chairwoman emerita. The Met had no comment on her illness.”

Musician News

7/1/07 – Violinist Soovin Kim will play the Vivaldi Four Seasons with the String Academy Orchestra at Indiana University in Bloomington.

7/1/07 – Violinist Ziva Patt-Rappaport will perform a recital in Overland Park, KS today. She subs with the Kansas City Symphony and is concertmaster of the St. Joseph Symphony.

6/30/07 – Violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson appeared in a live edition of Public Radio International's A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor, which will be recorded at Tanglewood. Laredo and Robinson will perform several movements from Suite for Two, which violinist Andy Stein wrote for them this year to celebrate 30 years of marriage and 30 years of performing together. Stein is the violinist/saxophonist/arranger listeners usually hear on A Prairie home Companion.

6/27/07 - Violinist Susanne Yi-Jia Hou made her debut at the Brott Music Festival playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the National Academy Orchestra.

6/24/07 – Violinist Rachel Denlinger, then a sophomore was the concertmaster at this year’s state Orchestra Festival in Pennsylvania. Ironically, her high school doesn’t even have a string orchestra program.

6/23/07 – ChannelNewsAsia.com ran an interview with pop crossover violinist David Garrett, who is currently touring Asia to flog his new album, Free. With Juilliard credentials, the violinist prefers to keep the emphasis off the time he spent modeling to pay the bills, he tells the interviewer, but the subject always seems to come up.

6/22/07 - Violinist Fangye Sun, the National Repertory Orchestra’s assistant concertmaster, performed the Glazunov Violin Concerto with that orchestra in Breckenridge, Colo.

Orchestra News

The New York Philharmonic has received a $5 million gift from Didi and Oscar S. Schafer to help support the orchestra’s Concerts in the Parks, beginning this July. The gift provides underwriting of $1 million annually over the next five years, with the series to be known as the New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer.

The New York Youth Symphony has named Ryan McAdams its next music director, beginning this fall. Now completing a Fulbright fellowship year as conducting apprentice at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic under Music Director Alan Gilbert, McAdams has spent the past two summers at Aspen Music Festival and School’s American Academy of Conducting. He is a recent graduate of the conducting program at The Juilliard School.

The North Carolina School of the Arts has appointed flutist and conductor Ransom Wilson director of its symphony orchestra and artist-teacher of conducting in the School of Music.

Other Music News

6/28/07 – According to MusicalAmerica.com, the American Symphony Orchestra League is changing its name, effective in the fall, to the League of American Orchestras. “The 65-year-old organization is also using the name change to launch a new strategic plan, website and graphics in the fall.

6/27/07 – According to the ASOL, a major restoration of National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding moved one step closer to enactment as the House approved a $35 million increase - the largest single increase in NEA history.

From Emily Grossman
Posted on July 2, 2007 at 9:03 AM

Mayuko Kamio played the Prokofiev G minor with the Anchorage Symphony in February. I'm glad she won the Tchaikovsky because she was thoroughly impressive to hear on the stage when she came here. I was puzzled that I'd never heard of her before. She truly is a great violinist.

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 2, 2007 at 8:39 PM

I thought I remembered you saying that in one of your blogs or something. If you look back over the last seven years or so of competitions, you see lots of the same names in the winners lists. She came in somewhere around 4th a lot. It seems like if you come in high in a big one, and your competitiors haven't, and then especially if the politics are right for you, you'll win. Very much like going up the ladder in an office. Lots of potential contestants have finished ahead of her in other competitions and could have won this as "easily" as her. Actually the politics would be more interesting than the music to me. The human mind can only tolerate so much violin, no matter how good it is :)
It doesn't have to be a really objectively judged contest, because the judging should be subjective anyway; at least I would hope it would be. Speaking not about the reputation of the competition or its abilty to make people interested in entering it.

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 2, 2007 at 8:59 PM

"Very much like going up the ladder in an office."
And I think this is why when the list first came out, people knew in advance who was going to win. Just like you know who's going to get a promotion. Seems less dishonest in that light.

From Neil Cameron
Posted on July 2, 2007 at 10:15 PM

According to MusicalAmerica.com, the American Symphony Orchestra League is changing its name, effective in the fall, to the League of American Orchestras.

Not to be confused with the American League of Symphony Orchestras or the Orchestra League of America - splitters!!

Neil (with apologies to Monty Python)

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 2, 2007 at 10:32 PM

Or the American Symphony Orchestra League United Front.

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on July 3, 2007 at 4:15 AM

Greetings,
why not the
`my phony Fronted American Orchestras League Unit?`

Cheers,
Buri

From Eugene Chan
Posted on July 3, 2007 at 5:52 AM

Beverly Sills has passed to the great stage in the sky... rest in peace.

From Gerry Branca
Posted on July 4, 2007 at 1:39 AM

I have a question rather than a comment. What kind of violin did Mayuko Kamio play? Was it made in Japan or China? Were the other winners playing a violin of status?( original Amati) The instrument could have had a lot to do with her winning also, not to diminish any of her natural ability or tallent.

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Violin News & Gossip, Op. 3, No. 52

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