In Wednesday’s (6/19) Plain Dealer (Cleveland), Donald Rosenberg writes that the biennial Cleveland International Piano Competition will operate on a three-year cycle, following the 2013 competition in late July and early August, with the next competition scheduled for 2016. “ ‘We need more time to plan as the event gets bigger,’ Pierre van der Westhuizen, the competition’s new executive director, said Tuesday. ‘We need more time to fund-raise.’ … The Young Artists Program, a national program until now, will become an international endeavor.… Van der Westhuizen’s stamp is already noticeable. He has devised a new festival of conversations, discussions, films and master classes to complement the 2013 competition. He said the 2016 competition will add a chamber-music round to the current schedule of preliminary and semi-final recitals—this year at Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium for the first time—and concerto rounds with the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall…. For the first time, the first-prize winner will make a solo recording to be released on the Steinway & Sons record label and produced by ArkivMusic.… Moving the competition to a three-year cycle will have another major benefit for the winner: three years of career management, instead of two.”
Posted June 24, 2013
