14th International Tchaikovsky Competition launches with 3 weeks of web viewing from 7 concert halls

The 14th International Tchaikovsky Competition officially opened last night, and runs to June 30, with a gala finale scheduled for July 2.

Organizers have worked hard over the past couple of years to change rules and balance juries for the quadrennial event so that no one can argue with the results (something competition watchers tend to do compulsively anyway).

They are also promising live web streaming of all competition rounds, which are being held on seven different halls in St. Petersburg and Moscow (including a first look inside the Moscow Conservatory's newly renovated concert spaces). The producer for the webcasts is Molly McBride, who did a brilliant job in getting the 2009 Cliburn competition online.

It promises to be a great window on one of the world's biggest and most prestigious competitions in piano, violin, cello and voice. Instrumental competitors are aged 16 to 30, vocal competitors are 18 to 32.

Piano and cello rounds began today at 1 p.m. local time in Moscow. Vocal and violin begin tomorrow in St. Petersburg.

There are two Canadians competing this time: Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio alumna, soprano Yannick Muriel Noah, and remarkable 18-year-old Montrealer, cellist Stéphane Tetrault, a student of Yuli Turovsky's and the youngest member selected for the first YouTube Symphony Orchestra.

As is so often the case on the first day of a webcast from a new setup, there are teething problems. My first check of today's piano webcast wasn't promising: the stream repeatedly stalled, and I couldn't figure out how to switch away from the piano competitors to check in to the cello rounds.

Comments

[Jochen Eggert]

You may want to list my son, cellist David Eggert, as Canadian as well. His nationality is listed in the competition as Canadian/German because he has dual citizenship. But he grew up in Sherwood Park, AB (just outside Edmonton), graduated in Montreal and just completed his masters degree at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

[Barry Shiffman]

John, I am here listening to the amazing playing in the violin competition as a juror. It is a phenomenal level of playing in a city that is the birth place of such violin masters as Heifetz, Elman, Zimbalist.....
a great week for music making by the next generation.
Barry Shiffman
violin jury