On Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 9:30:52 AM UTC-7, Dan Koren wrote:
On Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 8:54:02 AM UTC-7, Dan Koren wrote:
On Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 8:29:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Koren wrote:
On Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 8:16:23 AM UTC-7, HT wrote:
Did anyone follow this year's competition? Who are the finalists?
https://arims.org.il/
This year Netanyahu's putsch
has grabbed all the headlines.
I no longer watch the Rubinstein
because of its jury controlled by
the Vardi-Kaplinsky gang. They
are the equivalent of the Likud
in piano music.
The algorithm for deciding the
prize winners is simply this: 1)
find a finalist who studied with
Vardi, or at least took master
classes with him; 2) find a
finalist who studied with
Kaplinsky; 3) even better if
they are the same person(s);
4) distribute the prizes among
them.
One more thought comes to mind:
as far as one remembers, in most
of the Rubinstein competitions the
top prize was awarded to someone
who did not deserve it according to
public opinion. Women and Asian
competitors were often overlooked,
even when they were clearly better
than the others: Etsuko Terada, Yeol
Eum Son, Diana Kacso, Ching Yun Hu
and Khatia Buniatishvili were thought
by the public at the time to have
performed better than the higher
prize winners.
In 1974, the jury surprised everyone
by eliminating Christian Blackshaw
from the finals, while promoting
Emanuel Axe and awarding him
the first prize, over Eugene Indjic
and Janina Fialkowska. Ruby was
in the jury that years, however there
wara rampant rumors he was already
disconnected from the world around
him and the actual decisions were
made by Mme Rubinstein.
In 1977, Gerhard Oppitz won over
Diana Kacso and Etsuko Terada,
even though he played like a
brick. The scuttlebutt was this
was a politically motivated
decision because the state
needed or wanted something
from Germany. No one could
have imagied he would win
the gold after playing like a
brick in the finals.
In 1980, Gregory Allen won over
Ian Hobson and Geoffrey Tozer.
Has anyone heard of him since?
In 1983, Jeffrey Turd Kahane
won the gold over Fei Ping Hsu
and Hung-Kuan Chen in a classic
display of anti-Asian prejudice.
I skipped the 1986 through 2001
competitions. In 2005 Gavrylyuk
and Levit won gold and silver and
Yeol Eum Son only got the bronze,
even though it was plainly obvious
she was the best,
No first prize was awarded in 2008,
Roman Rabinovich and Ching-Yun Hu
tied for second and Buniatishvili "won"
the bronze. CYH is a far better pianist
than Roman Rabinovich was, is, or
will ever be.
In 2014, Seong-Jin Cho placed 3rd
"behind" Steven Lin and Antonii
Baryshevskyi.
In 2017, Sara Daneshpour was
awarded 3rd prize, while Szymon
Nehring and Daniel Ciobanu were
awarded first and second prizes.
There are plenty of recordings
available on YT for everyone to
be able to verify my assessments.
The pattern that emerges from all
the above is that the Rubinstein
tends to prefer traditional sewing
machines and overvalues men
over women and whites over
Asians.
dk
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