John Giordano, chairman of the jury for the Fourteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, announced the six pianists advancing to the Final Round, which starts Thursday, June 6, at 7:30 p.m. Audiences can watch the performances live at Cliburn.org. For the complete schedule of Final Round performances, click here.
The finalists are:
Sean Chen, 24, United States
Fei-Fei Dong, 22, China
Vadym Kholodenko, 26, Ukraine
Nikita Mndoyants, 24, Russia
Beatrice Rana, 20, Italy
Tomoki Sakata, 19, Japan
The Fourteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, taking place May 24-June 9 at Bass Performance Hall in Forth Worth, Texas, has welcomed 30 of the world’s finest pianists to Texas. The competitors hail from all over the world, representing 13 nations: the United States (7), Italy (6), Russia (5), China (3), Ukraine (2), Australia, Chile, France, Japan, South Korea, Poland, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. They range in age from 19 to 30. For a complete listing and biographies, click here.
During the four days of the Semifinal Round (June 1-4), each competitor played a 60-minute recital and one string quintet with the renowned Brentano Quartet. They performed live at Bass Hall before the 13-member jury and hundreds of patrons, as well as to a worldwide audience via the Competition’s live, fully produced eight-camera webcast, which has accumulated more than 2.3 million views by almost 300,000 unique visitors watching over 6.7 million minutes of content (through June 2). View the entire Competition live and on demand at Cliburn.org.
During the Final Round, each finalist will perform two concerti of their choice, the first a chamber concerto from works by Beethoven and Mozart, and the second any concerto scored for full symphony orchestra and piano. The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, which has appeared at every Cliburn Competition, will perform two concerti with each of the six finalists, under the baton of Maestro Leonard Slatkin for the first time. At the end of the Final Round performances, awards will be announced during the Final Awards Ceremony beginning at 7 p.m. on Sunday, June 9.
Van Cliburn, the Competition’s inspiration and namesake, passed away on Feb. 27, 2013. The Fourteenth Competition is dedicated to Mr. Cliburn, as a tribute to his devotion to young artists, and his belief in the transformative powers of music.
ABOUT THE CLIBURN
The Cliburn disseminates classical music worldwide and nurtures and launches young artists’ careers through the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and ensuing three-year international concert tours of its medalists as well as award-winning documentaries, radio broadcasts and a live webcast that extends outreach to listeners across the globe.
For audiences in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, the Cliburn promotes great music and world-class artists through the annual Cliburn Concerts series. It reaches 34,000 elementary school students annually with the education programs of Musical Awakenings®. In 1999, it established the International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs™, which The Boston Globe proclaimed “a celebration of music, and the people who have to make music, no matter what.”
Detailed information about the Cliburn and its programs is available at Cliburn.org.