In Monday’s (6/10) Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Andrea Ahles reports that 26-year-old Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko has won the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. “When Kholodenko arrived for the Cliburn competition, he told the Star-Telegram Sunday afternoon, he did not think he would make it past the preliminaries…. But he charmed Fort Worth audiences with his semifinal performance of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes…. Among Kholodenko’s most impressive accomplishments was a cadenza he wrote on the airplane for the work he played Sunday afternoon, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C.” Kholodenko will receive $50,000, three years of artistic management by the Cliburn, concert attire by Neiman Marcus, and recordings on the Harmonia Mundi label—plus an additional $11,000 for winning the competition’s best performance of the commissioned piece and best performance of a chamber work. Italian pianist Beatrice Rana was named silver medalist, and American Sean Chen was third-place winner; Rana and Chen each will receive $20,000 and Harmonia Mundi recordings.
Posted June 10, 2013
