“Performing Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with the city’s orchestra conducted by Jahja Ling, Martín García García of Spain won the $75,000 First Prize, plus the $2,000 Audience Prize, the $5,000 Chamber Music Prize, and the $5,000 Duo Piano Prize.” [Musical America Worldwide, August 13, 2021]
Cleveland Piano Competition Chooses Its Top, $75,000 Winner.
We heard Spanish pianist Martin Garcia Garcia play the Rachy 3rd and he’s quite the dashing big-tone, big gesture Romantic pianist. Well deserved prize. At two subsequent galas that I cohosted we heard him play some Liszt and a really fine Chopin Military Polonaise. He is going places fast! Second prize winner was Lovre Marusic, who is Croatian, whose final concerto was Beethoven’s Fourth – a very sensitive, involving performance. At the galas, he performed a Haydn sonata and a Scarlatti sonata. Very clean, articulate playing that really communicated. 3rd prize winner was Byeol Kim, a diminutive South Korean, who played a tremendously powerful Tchaikovsky First yet made real music out of this warhorse. It says much that when listening to the work, I thought first of the music and only secondarily of the virtuosity. Her gala contribution was Gottschalk’s “The Union” – a rousing patriotic medley of Yankee tunes which she played with great panache and obvious relish. Byeol has a winning personality and I think will be a great hit with audiences, which bodes very well for her career. In 4th place in the final round – a great honor in itself as this was “the fab four” winnowed down from 26 accepted contestants out of 250 applicants! – was Yedam Kim, also from South Korea but no relative, who did the most thoughtful, musical Rachy 3rd I’d ever heard. All the technique was there but again I focused on the music. At the galas, her contribution was an arrangement of Freddy Mercury’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” a rousing tour de force demanding full virtuosity as well as a special fondness for the original. By the 2nd time she played this, she really let loose and brought the guest audience to cheers. A great competition which you can still watch on their YouTube channel. With artists like these, classical music in the coming years and decades is in good hands!