{"id":42504,"date":"2017-02-02T15:01:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T20:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=42504"},"modified":"2017-02-10T18:28:46","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T23:28:46","slug":"the-scoop-the-glenn-gould-school-concerto-competition-crowns-five-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2017\/02\/02\/the-scoop-the-glenn-gould-school-concerto-competition-crowns-five-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"THE SCOOP | The Glenn Gould School Concerto Competition Crowns Five Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pianist
Pianist Charissa Vandikas, one of five winners of The Glenn Gould School Concerto Competition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Five Glenn Gould School students have won the chance to perform full concertos with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra in the 2017\/18 season.\u00a0 Linda Ruan, Charissa Vandikas, Le\u00f3n Bernsdorf,\u00a0 Sae Yoon Chon and Jocelyn Fralick were chosen from the eight finalists who had advanced from the semi-final competition of 38 students.<\/p>\n

In addition to excellent teaching and intensive practice, developing musicians need a chance to perform.\u00a0 Providing the venues, arranging the scheduling, and delivering an audience is not trivial, but there is simply no substitute for a collection of people paying close attention to a performer, and the more often a musician presents a piece from start to finish without stopping in front of a group, the better.<\/p>\n

The Glenn Gould School provides as many opportunities as possible for their students to have this experience.\u00a0 The Annual Glenn Gould Concerto Competition is one of those opportunities. \u00a0After the competitors play in semi-finals in front of a group of judges and others, the finalists get the chance to play on the stage of Koerner Hall, in front of the same judges plus<\/em> the public.<\/p>\n

On this occasion, the finalists do not perform their concerto accompanied by a full orchestra. \u00a0A collaborative pianist plays a condensed version of the orchestral score. \u00a0The piano, being an instrument that is suited to mimicking the sounds of other instruments, is called in to perform this task. \u00a0There\u2019s something paradoxical about the fact that this support piece is called a \u201creduction\u201d, which refers to the fact that multiple instruments have been reduced for one keyboard, because it actually calls on the pianist to expand <\/em>his or her skills to achieve all the different effects required, from a steady percussive beat to a lush breeze of string-like sounds.\u00a0 Beyond that, they are playing a support role, and not meant to attract attention to their own playing, which is at the same virtuosic level as the soloist. \u00a0And this major art is seldom enjoyed by the public because it is used as a rehearsal device, not a performance piece.<\/p>\n

The Glenn Gould Concerto Competition is a chance to hear the reduced versions of six orchestral works along with the soloists.\u00a0 This year\u2019s round included four piano concertos, one violin concerto, and one vocal solo, all backed up by superb pianists.\u00a0 The composers performed were Poulenc, Prokofiev, (twice) Liszt, Strauss, and Brahms.\u00a0 Given the variety of instruments and the range of composers, it is an understatement to say this is like comparing apples to oranges.\u00a0 It\u2019s more like comparing peacocks to avocados.\u00a0 When Timothy Ying, one of the three judges, \u00a0(along with Michael Esch and John Greer) announced the winners at the end of the day he emphasized that they were required to select those performances that they thought would work best with a full orchestra, but they were not commenting on the worth of the two musicians who were not selected.<\/p>\n

Short of going to a music festival, you won\u2019t often get the chance to hear six concertos in one day, so the Glenn Gould Concerto Competition is an event to watch for in 2018.\u00a0 Not only will you enjoy a free concert in a fabulous concert hall, but you will also be sincerely thanked for attending.\u00a0 Timothy Ying told us that there had been a \u201clot of electricity\u201d at the semi-finals, but your presence made this a concert.\u201d<\/p>\n

I for one am happy to contribute to that difference. I\u2019m also looking forward to hearing the fully orchestrated performances during the 2017-2018 season, an experience that I think will be a bit like going from film noir to Technicolor:\u00a0 both are satisfying, but one is richer than the other.<\/p>\n

For more CLASSICAL MUSIC NEWS, visit\u00a0HERE<\/u><\/a><\/span>.<\/h3>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five young soloists win a chance to perform a concerto with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra during the 2016-17 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":42505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6439,39],"tags":[9441],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/02\/Charissa-Vandikas.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-b3y","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42504"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42525,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42504\/revisions\/42525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42504"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=42504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}