SAN ANTONIO ‒ A new name, a new outlook, and a new sheriff have brought distinctive character and a boost in stature to the other major piano competition in Texas. Its inaugural run under the new dispensation concluded on Feb. 1.
Born in 1984, the San Antonio International Piano Competition had been strictly a solo contest that, in early years, was of more regional than international interest. But it grew steadily in prize money and in the caliber of its contestants. Following the 2016 edition, the competition’s board sought a merger partner and settled on Musical Bridges Around the World, which had been founded in 1998 by a Russian emigré pianist, Anya Grokhovski. Musical Bridges had started out producing classical concerts, often featuring other Russian emigré musicians, in the historic San Fernando Cathedral, but its program expanded into jazz, world music and dance, and programs for kids and seniors, all underwritten by donations and offered to the public without charge. Professional staff, budget, and capability grew accordingly. Adding a piano competition to its menu would be something of a stretch, but not an impossible one.
The results exceeded all reasonable expectations. Under the Musical Bridges umbrella, with Grokhovski running the show, the competition experienced a wholesale transformation.
First, the event was renamed the Gurwitz International Piano Competition to honor the memory of Ruth Jean Gurwitz, a former president of the competition, a stalwart supporter of classical music in San Antonio, and, by reliable report, an excellent classical and jazz pianist.
The competition moved from a triennial to a quadrennial schedule, increased the medalists’ purse from $30,000 in 2016 to $50,000, and added chamber music and concerto rounds for the finalists. The previous organization had commissioned a solo work for each competition from 1991 on ‒ Joan Tower, Paul Moravec, and Matthew Mason were the most recent composers. The Gurwitz went a step further, commissioning a work for the unusual combination of piano, clarinet, and percussion.
A stunning development was the Gurwitz’s admittance to the World Federation of International Music Competitions. Only five other U.S. competitions are members, and only two of those are piano competitions ‒ the Cleveland and Fort Worth’s Van Cliburn. (Grokhovski said the Van Cliburn staff had been most helpful with advice and guidance through practical complexities, such as dealing with the tax laws in the competitors’ home countries.)
The inaugural Gurwitz Competition attracted 76 applicants from 21 countries. Twelve were chosen to perform ‒ five from Russia, three from South Korea, and one each from Canada, China, Italy, and Ukraine. For the first time, none of the competitors was an American. (One American made the cut but withdrew.)
Grokhovski’s world-music interests were reflected in two distinctive elements of the 2020 competition.
For the semifinal round, at Trinity University, the six musicians were required to include a piece from their home countries. The Russian and Italian offered familiar Prokofiev and Scarlatti, respectively, but the rest ‒ all three South Koreans and the Chinese ‒ played fascinating modernist works that deserve wider hearing in the West. The composers were the Chinese Yiqiang Sun and the Koreans Il Hoon Son, Dahei Boo, and Isang Yun. As in previous competitions, semifinalists also had to play a Latin American or Spanish work. Korea’s Jongyun Kim, who did not advance to the final round, was awarded the $5,000 prize for the best performance in that category.
The venue for the third round was the gilt-edged Charline McCombs Empire Theater, dating from 1913. Each of the three finalists played a solo work and then joined clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and percussionist John Hadfield ‒ members of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble ‒ in the commissioned work by San Antonio composer Ethan Wickman. Titled Murmurs from the Exile, this lovely piece evokes both the musical atmosphere of the Middle East and the forced migrations that are the region’s present lot. All three players are required to improvise a cadenza, with harmonic guidance from the composer. For Azmeh and Hadfield, improvisation is old (but stylish) hat; for classical pianists and competitions, not so much. Maybe it should be.
The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts was the venue for the concerto round, anchored by the San Antonio Symphony under music director Sebastian Lang-Lessing.
The gold medal ($25,000) went to China’s Jiale Li, a native of Huludao in Liaoning Province. He is currently pursuing a doctorate at Eastman. Li’s account of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 evinced limitless technical chops, sensitively sculpted phrasing, and power by the megaton ‒ yet in the slow movement he could spin the merest wisps of gossamer poetry. Among the three finalists, Li produced the longest and most elaborate cadenza in Murmurs from the Exile. Li chose to play a Shigeru Kawai in all three rounds. In the Rachmaninoff concerto, that instrument translated Li’s most extreme displays of muscle into gushers of rich, burnished sound. In earlier rounds, however, the same instrument responded with less grace to his hyper-aggressive performances of Liszt’s B-minor sonata and Ginastera’s Sonata No. 1.
Korea’s Yedam Kim took silver ($15,000). She brought maturity and intelligence ‒ and no small share of brilliance ‒ to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5. In the second round, her traversal of Ravel’s La valse was remarkable for its freedom and a clear narrative line. Her cadenza in the commissioned work was the most succinct of the three. Kim’s most striking trait was a velvet touch that yielded a consistently beautiful tone on both a Steinway (in the concerto) and a Shigeru Kawai (in earlier rounds). Kim has been living in France since 2002.
From Italy, Leonardo Colafelice took bronze ($10,000). In Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Colafelice frequently pushed the tempo, causing lapses in coordination with the orchestra. But his solo work in the second round was elegant, colorful, and crisp, most memorably in Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrouchka. At the end of the third-round concert, a vote via smart phones gave Colafelice the Audience Favorite Award ($5,000). Colafelice played a Steinway in all three rounds. He teaches at the F. Torrefranca Conservatory in Vibo Valentia, Italy.
The Gurwitz can’t yet match the perks that Cleveland and Van Cliburn medalists receive and that might be more valuable than cash. The Cleveland gives its first-prize winner a New York recital debut and three years of management services in addition to $75,000. The Van Cliburn offers three years of management services and a recording deal to all three medalists. Grokhovski still has work to do.
Meanwhile, San Antonio offers one perk that can’t be duplicated: On behalf of the mayor and city council, all of the Gurwitz competitors were given certificates officially appointing them Emisarios de las Musas ‒ Emissaries of the Muses.
Mike Greenberg is an independent critic and photographer living in San Antonio, Tex. He is the author of The Poetics of Cities (Ohio State University Press, 1995). He was a Knight Fellow at Stanford University in 1986-87. He served as managing editor of Chicago Magazine and was a critic and columnist for a daily newspaper for 28 years.
