7:30 PM - HOMESTRETCH PART 1

Monday September 15th, 2014, early evening

Dami Kim

Another impressively technically accomplished violinist was Dami Kim, whose repertoire selections did not always show her strengths. Ill-advised was the Schumann D minor - a most unforgiving, methane-filled work that can seem eternal in any hands. In her Beethoven sonata No. 3, second movement, she managed to spin some beautiful long lines.

Her Zwilich was contained and never quite got off the ground.

In Sarasate’s Carmen fantasy, though spirited, she often altered the opera’s rhythm to suit her own technical comfort. If she is going to play a warhorse showpiece arrangement with little knowledge of the original, she needs to have more accuracy.

~CrackCritic

Indianapolis Violin Competition: Half the Last Lap (THIS AFTERNOON)

Monday September 15th 2014. AFTERNOON

Suyeon Kang

As performers there are times when the gods smile down on us. If Suyeon Kang’s Beethoven No. 7 this afternoon was disjunct from the pianist, her Zwilich Fantasy was the most convincing and brilliant thus far. Empowered by her commissioned piece performance, this listener was then entirely overwhelmed by her Prokofiev F minor sonata. Her Waxman “Carmen” was excellent, if not entirely consistent, but one could feel throughout the warmth of the audience towards this unassuming young woman with such a great emotional range. Spectacular.

Ji-Won Song

Ms. Song deserves only the highest respect as an instrumentalist. Honorable and excellent in execution was her Beethoven No. 7, with good ensemble. Her interpretation was facile, correct, appropriate, and not significant.

Her Ysäye No. 6 was quite clean, vibrant and impressive, although lacking in dynamics and panache. Valiant and over-emphatic was her Zwilich, though well-played.

Ach, the Brahms – her best playing and yet not so. Her tone was throbbing and her vibrato sometimes not. This was unconvincing due to a lack of direction other than vertical slashes, though there were some great moments.

~CrackCritic

Indianapolis 3rd Lap: SUNDAY

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Ji Young Lim

Ji Young Lim offered a vigorous, almost testosterone-fueled recital.

Her Beethoven No. 3 first movement was somewhat crispy, due to incessant vertical attacks and gestures. Her second resembled a foghorn unneeded on an overbright day. Commendable was her courage to dare recklessness in the last. There was some suppleness apparent in the Zwilich, Brahms and the Saint-Säens, but this listener would have appreciated more sensitivity throughout.

Kristi Gyezi

Mr. Gyezi ‘s dedication to the seriousness of his artistry is most admirable, yet some might consider such weight to be an impediment. His Beethoven No. 10 first movement began straitlaced and workaday, but a dignified development led to him finding his voice: a dusky tone in the recap. His second movement was honest, sensitive and sung, yet in the last, his most moderate tempo made it wistfully tepid.

CrackCritic Reviews Indianapolis! 2nd Quarter

These performances are from the second day: Saturday, September 13, 2014. 

Jinjoo Cho

Jinjoo Cho’s first Beethoven Sonata pleased by its smiling and tender sensitivity, never forced, whose personable thoughtfulness enthralled the audience. Her Zwilich was warm with thrilling sound, only very occasionally over-impassioned.

In the Prokofiev F minor, her first movement had a compelling and atmospheric sound, appropriately morose. Her second and last movements, however, suffered from a kindness, smoothness even, that was lacking in the violent authority needed for these pillars of wartime writing.

Waxman’s Carmen, curiously, did not quite match the quality of the opening of her recital.

Stephen Kim

A confident player, one cannot fault Mr. Kim for tending towards the overly so in his Beethoven Sonata No. 7. To his disadvantage, every forte down bow was begun from above the string - Beethoven occasionally writes ‘marcato’, but not constantly. In Mr. Kim’s accompanying figures, he was not as attuned as he could have been to his partner.

CrackCritic Reviews Indianapolis Violin Competition!

Although it was not possible for CC to hear every part of the 1st round, he did hear some of everyone and feels there were quite a few casualties, especially one. On that, CC will expound a few theories once the contest is over.

He is listening and watching the semifinal in its entirety. Commentary on each contestant is limited due to space. 

Semi-final round, first quarter of 16, Friday, September 12, 2014

Nancy Zhou

The first contestant in this round,  Nancy Zhou, played with consistent tone and generally good intonation.  After opening with a dry, run-of-the-mill Beethoven 4^th Sonata, her Strauss Sonata suffered from her refusal (perhaps inability) to interact with her pianist.  Her Zwilich and Ysaye solo works underscored her not few technical accomplishments, yet we anticipate a greater depth of musical understanding in her career.

Yu-Chien Tseng

CrackCritic thinks it is unfair to ask of young players in international competitions to play the Classical repertoire.

This applicant’s Beethoven Sonata # 8 was at best, dutiful, and he was playing from a questionable edition.

Stephen Clapp, 1939-2014

  

Stephen Clapp passed away on January 6, 2014 at the age of 74. His life was celebrated at Juilliard’s Paul Hall on a stunningly beautiful May afternoon, presented by the school’s President Joseph W. Polisi.

Dr. Clapp (with a smile), always preferred to not be addressed with his honorary honorific, received by the Juilliard School after 27 years of service as teacher and dean. What follows is my encomium to the man through a correspondence with his wife.

                                     ------------------------------                             
                                                                         
                                                                         Wednesday 21 May                                                                                                       
Dear Mrs. Clapp,                                                    

It was a great honor to participate in Juilliard’s memorial to your beloved husband. Though I was overwhelmed looking at the magnificent pictures in the elegant program, playing for his student Jordan Hendy’s sterling performance moved me to tears.

Knowing Mr. Clapp and working with his pupils was ennobling; his advice to me musically and paternally was the most precious. A man of the greatest integrity, I admired his complete commitment to his faith even if I couldn’t share his religious views. He led a remarkable life in music as a violinist, chamber musician, educator and administrator who miraculously marshaled and balanced all of his responsibilities.

Though I’ve the pleasure of meeting you only twice, that you were the beacon of his life was touchingly and radiantly apparent.

I send you my deepest condolences.

All Love To You,

Eduard Laurel

                                                                                             Tuesday 3 June

Dear Eduard,

I would love to be writing to you on creamy embossed stationary, as your letter to me deserves. I would be if I had your mailing address.

Thank you SO much, Eduard, first of all for sharing your music with all of us at the Tribute.  But even more personally, for sharing your responses to Stephen and his life, with such beautifully thought out words.

It Takes Two to Tango, Samba, Waltz (And Do a Sacrificial Dance)

  The duo-piano team Christina and Michelle Naughton offered a most impressive program August 5th presented by the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts on a warm clear moonlit night. A welcome, if unexpected guest was a peregrine falcon who soared over the bandshell throughout the evening. These poised gracious identical twins, who look much younger than their 25 years, are two mean pianists. They captivated their large audience (an estimated three thousand) and a global radio audience in a program of iconic demanding modern works, perhaps a trifle heavy for a summer’s night in Central Park.

   

They opened with a delightfully sparkling account of Milhaud’s Scaramouche whose clarity of texture balance and ensemble was ideal. In the Moderé the quasi-yodeling dialogue between the instruments was so sweetly naïve, though the samba that is the Brazileira could have used more maracas. John Adams’ ecstatic Hallelujah Junction was the pinnacle of the evening, and its complex cross-rhythmic rippling interplay was dispatched with thoughtfulness, aplomb and abandon, and along with the entire program, played by memory.

"I Am Viagra to Classical, Aspirin to Pop"

  

Amadeus Leopold is the re-invention of the performer formerly known as Hahn Bin, a well-trained classical violinist. Taking his cues from contemporary popular culture, we can only admire his courage to embody FABULOUSNESS, to exist at the forbidden cruxes of the man/boy, the male/female, the sadist/masochist, the sacred and profane. He tells us of his “marriage and commitment to a new era of music - one where there is no boundary between what is classical and what is pop.”

Personifying Everyman’s desire to be an unbridled sensation, he embodies aspects of the human condition; from the ancient Greeks’ Dionysus and his maenads and the movie stars of yesteryear through the Romantic virtuosos and rock icons of today. With a downtown club kid aesthetic, backed by avant-garde fashionistas, Mr. Leopold is truly carving his place at the forefront. “We are very near the golden era of music, one that is reminiscent of the days when Liszt and Kreisler, Rachmaninoff and Mozart himself (sic) were the rock stars of their day. My role in the world is to embody the renaissance of classical music itself; I wanted to make that message clear to the world.” His mission is as worthy as Bono’s, his screed as radiant as the Pope’s. If anyone, it is this figure that could reclaim the world’s attention to our profound art, presented with such fascinating provocation.

Okay, people. I am waiting. For a nice, big, fat, juicy cheek. I mean check.

A Day In The Life of…Eduard Laurel, CrackCritic’s Alter Ego.

A day or so I awoke at 5 AM with a pounding heart; another day in a perpetual month-long anxiety attack. Bordering on consciousness, I whiled away the next few hours in a delirium, counting each heartbeat, once again mind filled with lunacy.

Eventually, I pulled myself together enough to play an 11am jury at the Manhattan School an hour away, and I somehow mastered the 45-degree pitch of my hands to make it through the Prokofieff G minor Concerto and the violinist’s Debussy Sonata.

I’ve now found the words to describe the august faculty at Manhattan; not dead, but decomposing, each vying for the most baldly convincing expression of contempt towards these young aspirants.

Rushed to Juilliard for a 12:20…..