Southeastern Piano Festival June 2009

The second week in June saw the annual Southeastern Piano Festival for high school students at the University of South Carolina School of Music, with its monumental parade of talent from all over the world. This year was our seventh season, and we have grown in statue and size. Overall, this was the strongest field of young pianists so far. Of course, the main body of competitors come from Southern states and the East Coast but we also had contestants from the rest of the country, the winner this year hailing from Chicago. I taught five students this year, four girls and one boy. Last year it was four boys and 1 girl. Amazing the difference in dynamics this makes!! Four of my students were Asian descent, and one was from Eastern Europe. Among the concerti I coached was the Tschaikowsky, Prokofief 3rd, Rachmaninoff Rhapsody, Chopin No. 1, and Beethoven 3rd. These are cumbersome to work with in that, since the pianists have strict rehearsal rules with their appointed accompanists, we must avert going straight through the work, as if we were rehearsing. This perplexed me until I came to the conclusion that there is just a small amount one can accomplish in four lessons, and the contestants are more or less "set" in their preparation by the time they get here. So I divide the works into large chunks, find a few spots where I think they can improve in a short time, and keep coming back to those. This worked brilliantly this summer. The girl doing the Chopin was able to add a lot more color and variety of sound, the Beethoven gathered much more style, and the Tschaikowsky cadenza gainned more integration into the whole. In the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody we concentrated on the long build up to the BIG THEME, and especially the very ending of the theme, where there is a long coda like section with a lot of orchestral color. In general I find young pianists rarely look at the orchestral score, mostly concentrating on the piano part (and hoping they can get the notes). The young girl doing the Prokoview was only 15, and she was very polished...so we only had one session. In addition, they each have a solo piece. The boy who did Tschaikowsky picked the Beethoven "Appassionata"...with its long and dark first movement. It was a poor choice I felt, as it didn't add enough contrast in his repertoire. But he came a miracle mile in stylistic concept, and the quality of sound required. The Prokovief girl chose Ravel's "Jeux d'eau" and she also moved forward in the ability to make a "whole" out of a piece with alot of detours into cadenzas and impressionistic effects. She was thriled with what we accomplished, and won honorable mention in the finals. She was my only winner this year, as opposed to last year when my students won First and Second.

We have professional artists play envening recitals, and the one I enjoyed the most was by Christopher Taylor. He played a monumental program of Rzewski's The People United will never be Defeated, and the Bach "Goldberg". He is a fine pianist with a broad range of temperment.

This year's winner was Shawn Yeh, who played a movingly stark yet virtuoso performance of Ravel's Concerto "a main gauche", and also the Liszt Etude "Mazeppa".