Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Anyone else following Cliburn Jr?

I was able to see some of Prelim 1 this afternoon. Prelim 2 starts at 7:30 PM Central Time.
Just go to the Cliburn's website and they are streaming it live on that page.
Cliburn Website

Thank you for the alert! Really enjoying this.

My ego is too delicate... I'll just have to torture myself...

So far, I think Benjamin Rossen is the standout.

Replying to myself that Jiwong Yang is terrific, also. So far, these two are my favorites.

One thing I wonder about is, what is the reason behind why this competition is dominated by pianists from Asian originated families. Or is this also the case for other junior competitions?

I was only able to watch the first half yesterday, but for me there were no real standouts. I thought Hao-Wei Lins performance was beautiful though.

If you get a chance, watch Rossen and Jiwong Yang once their performances are on YouTube. They were the standouts. Definitely.

I listened to those two. You are right in that their playing was very good, but I'm still kind of missing that wow-factor. (Rossen's Eroica was awesome though, best etude performance so far in the competition)

Thanks for the tip, Coaster...watching/listening to the livestream now!

IMO the winner is clear. Shuan Hern Lee.

I think it's a bit early to say. After all we have still only heard the preliminary round. My favorite as of now is Benjamin Rossen, I really hope I will get to hear him play the Bartok concerto in the finals.

Interesting. I remember writing on the forum that I thought the time had come for Bartók to become popular in competition finals, in the same way that Prokofiev 2 became more common in recent years. Bartók no.1 is incredibly tough as an ensemble piece. He's a brave man for choosing that in a competition. I hope more young pianists start playing Bartók in competition finals.

I've just listened to him, and I think he has something special. Good luck to him. Not just in this competition, but in building his future.

I agree.

Why are they required to play a P&F?
Are there any of them eliminated just because of that while the rest of their performance was ok?

That's a pretty usual requirement for competitions. I'm not sure if any of the contestants got eliminated because of it, at least I didn't notice. From what I heard more people screwed up on their etudes.

Yes it is common. But why? Why not require it on the initial selection process? I can't imagine any competitor at this level not properly playing a P&F or any teacher/supervisor giving reference to such a competitor.

I think they are good pieces for sorting out the really good competitors from the others. Playing them properly is no big deal but to make something out of them is way harder. I think it's great to have the contestants play something from the WTC in the first round for that reason.

I really felt bad for Harmony Zhu. Her performances on Youtube are so great, but she clearly cracked under the pressure. Her etude was very shaky and she skipped almost half of the Catenaires (Would never dare to play that one in a competition!). In the end these kinds of competitions really are competitions in nerves,