WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2004
MUSIC
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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13
Courtney Kuhlen/Kansan
Daniel Suo, a 16-year-old from Lexington, Mass., played yesterday in between semi-final sessions at the First Annual International Piano Competition. Six students progressed from Monday's and yesterday's semi-finals to the finals, which will be held tonight at the Lied Center.
Lied Center hosts piano competition
By Miranda Lening mlenning@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas is hosting the first Kansas International Piano Competition at the Lied Center this week. The competition is in conjunction with the International Institute for Young Musicians, an annual summer festival for piano students. The festival has been a highly esteemed piano camp for 12- to 17-year-olds for almost 20 years, but this is the first year the Institute has held a competition.
Students interested in the competition submitted a tape featuring at least two contrasting piano works. The IIYM received more than 40 tapes, but only selected 15 contestants for the competition, said Jack Winerock, piano professor and the competition's institute coordinator and artistic director. Twelve of the 15 students selected for the competition are from the United States. The competition's semifinals were yesterday and Monday. The finals, which will include six students, are tonight at the Lied Center.
University faculty and guests from Hong Kong, Chicago, the University of Colorado, Northwestern University and the University of Washington judge the competition. The competitors will be judged on the quality of the sound coming from the instrument, their music selection, how well they play their instrument and the audience's reaction.
"We want them to have a variety of color and personality, which will probably be the most difficult thing because regardless of how prepared one is for the competition, you cannot teach those things," Winerock said.
The winner will receive a $3,500 prize.
and the six finalists will participate in a master class taught by Stanislaw Ioudenitch, a world renowned pianist and 2001 winner of the Van Clibun International Piano Competition, a famous international piano competition. Winerock said that it was a prestigious honor not only for the students to play for Ioudenitch, but also to have him at the camp.
The competition participants will stay at Naismith Hall for the Institute's three-week summer academy, which has 51 students enrolled. The summer academy is a residential camp where students take master and studio classes, as well as courses in sight reading, theory and accompaniment, all of which are important in mastering the piano. They practice piano for four hours a day, Winerock said. He said many of them practiced music they intended to play in future competitions.
"The students that come here are very serious about playing and competing," Winerock said. "Usually their teachers send them with pieces to work on."
The University has brought in an array of decorated teachers for the workshop, including Alan Chow from Northwestern University, Gabriel Kwok from Hong Kong, Ron Shinn from the University of Alabama, and Emilio del Rosario, who Winerock said was "probably one of the most famous teachers of young pianists."
Winerock and Scott Smith, the Institute's executive director and Kansas alumni, will also teach classes.
This is the second time the Institute has come to the University. The Institute plans to return for two more summers.
- Edited by Julie Jones