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He'll have two days to work on it. Today it might just have been a case of "not enough time to fix it today, since there's 10 people playing"

Wow does the tech clash with Anderson and Roe.

Edit: It's getting better. That's a relief...except the Cliburning questions

If you want to play on a cane chair, are you allowed?

They must be having trouble getting Betty Sue Bach to boot.

From the medici.tv feed:

@andersonroe hang in there! This is the hardest part of hosting, the filler! (Jade Simmons, the host from 4 years ago)

I find myself getting ear fatigue and loosing my patients with the players. I can't imagine how the jurors feel. I'm ready to pick a winner and call it quits. Maybe this competition is a little too long? Require a Mozart concerto (good idea IMO) maybe one or two Beethoven sonatas. Require one original work written for the competition. And then they can pick the rest, but limit it somehow. Maybe two baroque pieces, three romantic and two post romantic. That should do it. Crazy?

Advancing: Broberg, Chen, Cheung, Favorin, Hsu, Dasol Kim, Honggi Kim, Pierdomenico, Sun, Sunwoo, Tchaidze, Yang
Eliminated: Bartlett, Belyavskiy, Carroccia, Jurinic, Su Yeon Kim, Kudo, Shmukler, Teo


Disappointed (but not surprised) to see Teo go.

More Kapustin to come from Dasol Kim in the semis!

Six of my seven passed, Bartlett being the exception.

Glad Leonardo made it! Looking forward to the Beethoven Op. 7, Grande Sonata, and the Chopin Ballades! Also happy for Broberg. Too bad for Luigi Carrococcia. His program was too drawn out, what with the Barcarolle followed by 2 Nocturnes.

Not surprised. Feel sorry for Kudo, but she did not play well tonight. Watch out for the Italian kid Piedromenico . He's the sleeper, but I still think Sunwoo will win.

I hope you all like Mozart's concertos 20 (D Minor) and 21 (C Major). We'll be hearing them 6 and 4 times, respectively in the next few days (Honggi Kim is playing 23, and Broberg 25).

Other repeated works: Pictures at an Exhibition (3 times!) and Prokofiev's Sixth Sonata, Schubert's op. 899 Impromptus, and Schumann's Kreisleriana (twice each).

I think this is pretty much what everyone expected, aside from one or two disagreements. I still don't understand what they see in Yang, he is not ready for the gigs and responsibilities that this competition offers and is still having nerves/consistency issues in his recitals. Is he our new HWSNBN?

Anyway, glad that Favorin got through. Barring any major incidents, I think that the finalists will be the three Koreans, Favorin, Broberg, and Pierdomenico.

Regarding your predictions for finalists, I'd swap Han Chen for Broberg.

I have yet to hear Yang, but I think Hsu fits that description as well. He shows promise but could use some time to develop.

As far as (T)WSNBN, I don't think there's anyone in this competition that seems quite so out of place. Though regarding the original, I did find some things (they) did to be kind of fresh and interesting.

Yang has the ability to generate incredible harmonic tension through articulation and rests.

Well deserved advancement.

I didn't really follow Yang's progress during the Chopin competition, but since then I have become a big fan of his, such a presence and style for someone so young (in fact for any age). Many of his Youtube videos are of interest and even inspiring to me.

Help me out here?

Me, too! I have no idea what that acronym stands for.

On a side note, I am looking forward to six K. 466s, as that's my favorite Mozart concerto. I see we're in for 3 Pictures at an Exhibition, too. Also looking forward to hearing all 4 Ballades in a row, as I frequently listen to Artur Rubinstein play them (and the Scherzos) when I run.

"He Who Shall Not Be Named"?

I find the commentary of Anderson and Roe, as well as their dynamic to be quite awkward.

It's apparent that Greg does most of the talking, and when Liz gets a rare chance to speak, it often feels contrived, and she quite often gets cut-off by Greg.

I really expected there to be much more synergy between the two of them. Yes I realize that they are not reporters/actors/speakers and that they are professional piano players, it's just that they don't seem to warm to each other.

Did anyone else notice that old lady backstage that grabs the competitors left arm and squeezes followed by a big pat on the back it each time a pianist is about to take the stage? I'm surprised that none of the pianists have shaken her off. With the amount of nerves they must be experiencing at that moment, I'm surprised they put up with all of that groping.

And speaking of nerves, do you think that any of these pianists use beta blockers? I was speaking with my doctor, and she mentioned that it's quite common for professional musicians at the highest level to use them (one of her patients is in the SF symphony and uses them).

I heard that too, to me it sounded like too long fingernails.
Much very loud pedalthumping going on too, especially with Belyavksiy in the Beethoven variations, very annoying. Actually, I don't like Rachel Cheung. Her Schubert in round one was boring and played in a very mediocre fashion. And her Debussy préludes were just amateurish. I really don't understand how she got through.