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Aren't all the contestants ages known from the beginning and, I assume, must be accurate? Was there some faking of age??

My sentiments exactly. Many of us have invested a great deal of time, attention and, yes, emotion in our virtual participation here. Now that the verdict is in, it's time for all of us to "get a grip" and move on. I too would have liked to see Deljavan and Huanci in the finals, but I think the jury's choices are sensible even if they haven't met unanimous agreement in this august group. Juries are always unpredictable, and that fact alone makes it hard (and not very sensible) to be shocked by these decisions.

I also don't get those who want to bail at this point because of their angst about the selection of finalists. Personally, I'm really looking forward to the concerto performances of this very talented group.

There's at least one suggestion to that effect. It was made by Despina 41 in her humorous musings about this year's competition, set out in a Bright Cecilia web site I cited in an earlier post. Here it is:

"No, seriously, there are some good pianists in this competition. Our buddy Alexey Chernov is back, somehow, even though he's been 30 for how many years now? I'm not making this up--in the Richter Competition, apparently he was born in 1979:
http://www.richtercompetition.com/en_part.php?id=2

That's ok, I like how he plays the piano. I learned from this from the Tchaikovsky and Cleveland 2011 competitions, when he was born in 1982. Maybe for the next Tchaikovsky in 2015, he'll be born in 1985. I wish I knew the Russian secret to eternal youth..."

If you're looking for a good chuckle to chase away your sadness, you might find this amusing, irreverent (at times, outrageous) and helpful in restoring equanimity.

http://www.brightcecilia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5762

I second, Huangci! She should have been there!

add my me, too..
Deljavan and Huangci.

Kaplinsky should not be wandering the world picking and choosing the entrants and then sit on the jury. I think that's a big POWERFUL position on two accounts.

"competition winners are typically the reliable pianists somewhere in the middle when it comes to interpretation--those who don't go out on a limb or offend the majority's idea of good interpretation.Deljavan doesn't fit this profile. Perhaps Huangci doesn't either."

so perfectly said....seemed my emails to friends last night made the same point.

While it's possible that(I guess it's just)one contestant is over age, I find it highly unlikely that the VCC doesn't do some kind of age verification for anyone close to the upper limit. The consequences of missing something like that could be quite disastrous and embarrassing.

There are plenty of anonymous and cynical internet posters looking for silly stuff like this to post. The 1982 birthday for Chernov she mentioned for the Tchaikovsky and Cleveland competition wouldn't necessarily cause a problem, and who knows about the accuracy of the birth date for the Richter Competition...it could just be a typo.

Does anyone know of any instance where contestant in a major competition was later proved to be not qualified due to not meeting the age requirement?

I didn't see anything outrageously far from middle of the road in Deljeavan's interpretations for his solo recitals. I think the above quote is pure speculation. No one except those who voted know the reasons for the votes.

Brendan, you evil person! Change back the thread title!

All this outrage over one competitor is somewhat ridiculous..if you go through and read what the different critics have said about the different competitors you'll find that every one of them find some pianists horrible and others amazing. And more often than not one reviewer's favorite is slammed by the other critics.
All these musicians are incredibly talented and it ultimately comes down to a person's taste.
For example...Brendan's statement that Kholodenko's Liszt was some of the best he's ever heard..while a couple of the critics I've read say that it was nothing more than an empty showcase of his technique. It certainly wasn't the best rendition of the Etudes I've ever heard!

Has this thread been hacked? The title seem to be changed from Van Cliburn to Fei Fei .

Not hacked, more like a mod being rather nasty...

Hahahahaha

This has nothing to do with Fei-Fei Dong, but I'm finished watching the Cliburn live streams for this year. Back to studying choral music and practicing piano.

Brendan, get a grip on yourself.

I know you're kidding, but you leave no recourse but to get another lecture.

It seems that competitions just can't win. For years, they've gotten criticized (sometimes justly, sometimes not) for picking cookie-cutter pianists with the "best technique," who play "the most right notes," pianists who play in the usual standard accepted way. And look what happens when they don't, when they pick someone who perhaps doesn't have the most "technique to burn," who doesn't get the highest score on percentage of right notes: They get mocked, and accused of politics and even corruption. They can't win.

It looks to me like most of you who are mocking the result have absorbed the old standard that has been so criticized, and which it seems competitions are (thankfully) trying to move away from. How about rather looking at it this way: As long as the player's basic mechanics are at least at an excellent level -- and if you say that any of the 30 competitors' basic mechanics aren't, we'll have to agree to disagree -- then to a large extent it becomes a matter of seeing the totality of what they do, and deciding what you think of that. That totality includes things like ability to listen and hear (on which to me this controversial contestant was right at the top, shown particularly remarkably in her Liszt Sonata which was so terribly criticized by some), immersion in the music, ability to communicate, and (I would suggest) originality and a personal approach. If you prefer to just measure raw technique and percentage of right notes, you're entitled -- but realize that you might be 20-40 years behind the times, and that the thing you're mocking might be taking a lot more into account than you are.

There.
I'm done.
For now.

From what I've read on this thread, much of the criticism of FFD wasn't about lack of technique.

"Excellent level" can mean something different to everyone.

Looks like you missed what followed immediately after that.


....and that you missed a fair amount of the rest of what I said.

You flunk.

This is true, and I have no problem with people who don't like Dong's interpretations. The thing is that many of those who don't like her are treating their opinions of her as fact. IMO that's somewhat justified when the criticism is of technical flaws, since those can be objectively judged, and I can understand people feeling that Dong's performances were too messy to deserve a place in the finals. But if the primary criticism is musical, then I don't think it's fair to say "OMG that performance was horrible in every way, obviously corruption is involved". A complaint like "ugh, her playing isn't to my taste at all, not looking forward to hearing her concertos" is reasonable.

A star is born