Horowitz competition winners tour eastern United States (11/09/97)

Horowitz competition winners tour eastern United States

by Ika Koznarska Casanova

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Six outstanding young pianists from Ukraine and the U.S., winners of the second Vladimir Horowitz International Young Pianists' Competition held in Kyiv in April, appeared recently in a series of concerts.

They were presented by the Morris International Festival of the Arts, whose founder and artistic director is Alexander Slobodyanik, in a concert hosted by the County College of Morris in Randolph, N.J., on October 19. They also performed in Philadelphia at the Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center on October 21; the Sumner School Museum in Washington on October 23 under the sponsorship of The Washington Group Cultural Fund, (Laryssa Lapychak Chopivsky, director); and at the New England Conservatory in Boston on October 25.

The pianists will return to the U.S. on April 9, 1998, for a concert at Carnegie Hall.

The Vladimir Horowitz International Young Pianists' Competition was founded in 1995 by the Gliere State College of Music in Kyiv on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Horowitz's birth. The competition's founder and director is Yuri Zilberman, a native of Kharkiv and the school's assistant-director.

Among the co-sponsors of the competition are the Kyiv Conservatory, the Ministry of Culture and Arts of Ukraine, and the Kyiv Municipal Administration. The competition bears the name of the legendary pianist who was born, studied and performed in Kyiv.

Vladimir Horowitz (1903-1989) is considered one of the most technically gifted and interpretatively charismatic pianists of his day, who defined for many years the ultimate standard of the virtuoso.

Born in Kyiv in 1903, he studied at the Kyiv School of Music.

The Kyiv School of Music, the oldest school of music in Ukraine, was founded in 1868. It 1956 the school was named after Rheinhold Gliere (1875-1956), a graduate of the Kyiv School of Music and the Moscow Conservatory, and director of the Kyiv Conservatory.

Two generations of the Horowitz family received their musical education at the Kyiv School of Music: Vladimir's mother, Sofia (née Bodyk); uncle, Alexander; aunt, Yelysaveta; sister, Regina; and both his brothers, Georg and Jakob. Vladimir Horowitz entered the KSM in 1913.

His sister later settled in Kharkiv where she taught piano for 50 years, developing the Horowitz school of playing.

Vladimir Horowitz graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory in 1921. After a Russian debut at the age of 17, he appeared with overwhelming success in Berlin and Paris in 1924, and made his London and American debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1928. Possessing remarkable technical virtuosity, he soon became one of the most popular pianists in the United States. In 1933 he married the daughter of Arturo Toscanini and settled in New York in 1940. He continued to perform until the early 1970s, with breaks due to ill health. Horowitz returned to concertize in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1986 at the age of 83.

Since its founding in 1995, the Horowitz competition has become an important event in the cultural life of Ukraine as well as abroad.

Apart from creating a forum for promising young pianists the world over, the competition gives exposure to Ukrainian pianists and contributes to the continuity of Ukraine's musical heritage by showcasing outstanding pianists in recitals abroad.

Since the first competition was held in May 1995 - with 106 applicants from 14 countries - the competition's status has continued to grow, attracting the attention of exceptionally talented pianists and gaining the recognition of the international music community.

The competition is now permanently established and will be held in the capital of Ukraine once every two years.

Among the honored guests at this year's competition were: Jan Jacob Bistritzky, vice-president of the World Federation of International Music Competitions, Geneva, Switzerland, and official advisor of the Tchaikovsky, Van Cliburn, Santander and Sydney competitions; Dr. Gustav Alink of the Netherlands, author, researcher and an authority on piano competitions; Svyatoslav Belza, popular media personality in the field of the arts in Russia; Tykhon Khrennikov, composer and professor at Moscow Conservatory and director of the Tchaikovsky International Competition; Sheila McKenna, director of the Preparatory Department of the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati; and Mr. Slobodyanik, the internationally renowned pianist.

The competition, open to students from throughout the world, is divided into three age groups with participants ranging in age from 10 through 24.

Qualifying rounds of the competition are held in the U.S., Japan and Ukraine, with the finals held in Kyiv in April. Ms. McKenna of the Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati is coordinator of the American qualifying round of the competition held in Cincinnati, and Kazuhiko Nakajima, pianist and professor at Osaka University, coordinates the qualifying round held in Tokyo.

Among this year's jury were distinguished pianists, pedagogues and composers, among them: composer Ivan Karabyts of Kyiv, chairman of the jury; pianist Norma Fisher of the United Kingdom; Prof. Martin Canin of the Juilliard School; Rolf Plagge of Austria, pianist and professor at the Salzburg Mozarteum; Prof. Nakajima of Japan; Tatiana Kravchenko of Russia, honorary professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and former professor at the Kyiv Conservatory; Maria Krushelnytska of Ukraine, director of the Lviv Conservatory; pianist Mykola Suk of the U.S. and Ukraine; Warren Thomson of Australia, artistic director of the Sydney International Piano Competition; pianist Dina Joffe of Israel; and Vasyl Ivchenko, director at the department of national and international competitions at Ukraine's Ministry of Culture, who served as secretary of the jury.

Serving as conductors at the competition were Virko Baley, founder and music director of the Las Vegas Chamber Players and Nevada Symphony Orchestra, and principal guest conductor of the Kyiv Camerata, and Mykola Dyadyura, principal conductor of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine and conductor of the National Opera of Ukraine.

Among the winners of this year's competition were:

Oleksandr Havryliuk, age 13, a student at the Specialized Music School in Kharkiv in the class of Viktor Makarov, winner of the fourth prize at the 25th International Competition of Young Pianists in Italy;
Oleksandr Hryniuk, age 14, a student at the Lysenko Music School in Kyiv in the class of N. Grydneva and participant in the Krainev International Young Pianists Competition;
Vitaliy Baran, age 23, a native of Lviv and student at the Lysenko Music School in the class of Prof. P. Yurzhenko, who took part in the 1995 International Jazz Festival of Vilnius in Lithuania;
Denys Proshchaev, 19, a student at the Lysenko Music School in Kyiv in the class of I. Lipatova, winner of the first prize of the 1995 International Young Pianists' Competition held in Greece and second prize of the Krainev International Young Pianists' Competition;
Bryan Wallick, 19, a student at the Juilliard School with Jerome Lowenthal, finalist of the Missouri Southern International Piano Competition and first-prize winner of the Ohio Music Teachers Association Buckeye Competition; and
Oleksiy Koltakov, 16, a student at the Institute of the Arts in Kharkiv with Prof. Makarov, winner of the first prize of the 1996 Krainev International Young Pianists' Competition and second prize of the first Vladimir Horowitz International Young Pianists' Competition (1995). Mr. Koltakov performed several Horowitz transcriptions, which he learned from recordings as they were never published.

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