According to Gustav Alink, founder and director of the Alink-Argerich Foundation in The Hague, there are now close to 1,000 piano competitions in the world.
They all aim to foster and support young talent and offer a variety of awards and opportunities. But how true is this? How much do they really help young artists to prepare for life
as a musician or to learn how to interact with audiences? And what tools do they give musicians to make an impact on society?
The Cleveland International Piano Competition, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year under the slogan “The Future is Grand”, has tried to answer these questions by offering a number of innovative and diverse ideas. Participants were not only playing “against” each other,
they were asked to also perform together in a spectacular “Grand Piano Playoff”. Here, the 16 competitors performed in pairs, playing new arrangements of pop songs well known to the audience.
“People really love the idea that we’re teaming pianists up to play popular music,” explained Yaron Kohlberg, President of Piano Cleveland. “This not only makes the opening ceremony more interesting and exciting, it also helps introduce the contestants to the audience, who can then vote for their favourite pair and continue to follow them throughout the competition.”
Later in the competition, “salon performances” at the historic Glidden House provided an opportunity to play in an intimate, chamber-music like setting while speaking about their goals and artistic vision to the jury and audience. And apart from the official competition rounds, which offered maximum repertoire flexibility, the competition offered performance opportunities like the “Concert Truck”, workshops in programming and audience engagement, and courses in branding, social media marketing, and fundraising. Lastly, prizes included not only (substantial) monetary awards, but also residencies at local universities as well as mentorship opportunities.
Looking back at the 2024 Cleveland competition, many of the new features have worked well. Of course, few competitions can show off with an orchestra as spectacular as the Cleveland Orchestra, and the four finalists made for
a truly exciting last round (Zijian Wei, 25, won First Prize
with a lively Rachmaninoff No. 3). But the competition’s efforts to attract and engage new audiences, to present young artists in new and attractive settings, and to expand the boundaries of the traditional piano competition repertoire, have definitely paid off and earned praise not only from the locals, but also from the 80 delegates of the 2024 Conference of the Alink-Argerich Foundation, who visited Cleveland during the final week of the competition. Representatives from piano competitions in 20 countries around the world discussed a variety of topics related to their competitions, trying to share creative ideas and offer innovative solutions.
“Careers in music have completely changed in the past 50 years, and competitions need to reflect those changes”, says Kohlberg. “I wouldn’t say that the traditional competition structure doesn’t serve them, but there is certainly room
for improvement.”
Many of those ideas could already be experienced firsthand in Cleveland, proving that its 2024 competition has already made a “grand” step towards the future.
Florian Riem