Thanks for asking and even just for being interested!!
I don't know if there are any videos, or if there will be. I know that the organization will be putting out some CD's, but I don't know how extensive they will be; I don't even know if I'll be on them.

So for now you'll just have to settle for what I said about LisztAddict's performance.
It was truly heavenly. One could not have hand-picked a more perfect performer to open the 1st such event in Warsaw.

Liszt Addict -- you lived up to your screen name. Your Liebestraume was wonderful -- nice singing melodic line, a brisk tempo (which I much prefer to the maudlin foot-dragging that sometimes occurs in slower tempos), and impressive finger work in those two-handed up-and-down-the-keyboard runs that Liszt loves. I also thought your Chopin was nicely conceived and musical, though slower than I like it. Best of luck in the compatition.

Mark -- welcome aboard. Your story about your encounter with Liszt Addict in Warsaw was touching. And your Black Mass is magnificent! I thought about trying it some time ago and quickly concluded that I'd go blind, crazy or both trying to figure out that tangle of warring rhythms and keep the piece moving ahead. I finally settled for the 2nd and 3rd, which are more my style. I was especially impressed with the quality of your video -- extremely professional and visually appealing. Please send some more.

No, not really, no. I was hanging around with LisztAddict, and was able to chat a bit with Ian Roy, Thomas Yu and Chuifun Poon, but I have seen you only on stage. Having said that, you perhaps haven't seen me at all, granted there were lots of people watching! Knowing you from the forum I will happily introduce myself next time!



May I ask what kind of answer did you receive? I asked the question by mail later on, asking about the repertoire requirements. They unfortunately couldn't answer me whether the same range of pieces will be needed next time. Everything is so indefinite yet, I'm afraid.



Oh, I can only imagine... now times are different, fortunately. If you ever come by to Lodz, feel free to drop me a message!



M.

Thank you!
BUT......before I get on the topic.......I can't get over your USER NAME!!

And I've got to ask, do most people here KNOW what that is?
I sure do.
Chopin is my #1 love, second only to the Marx Bros. (I think that was worthy of Yogi Berra.....not on purpose.)

Chico was incredible, in so many respects. And there were particularly some great scenes and lines with the Ravelli character.
Like, "He thinks I look alike." (Context to be provided upon request.)
Or: That whole thing about how much they charge for playing or not playing, rehearsing or especially NOT REHEARSING: "You couldn't afford it."

And now back to our regularly scheduled program......

About the Scriabin 9th sonata: You're right on target about the RHYTHMS!!!
I could "write a book" on that, and in time I might except, to use another cliche, I wouldn't know where to start.

Besides how complex they are......it's amazing how PRECISE they are. In fact, just about everything about those late Scriabin scores is remarkable in its precision of indication. To give a simple example, he makes distinctions between "triplet-length" upbeats and "sixteenth-length" upbeats -- often with identical thematic material. Some performances don't make the distinction, but when we take note of the differences, it creates a richer flow and structure.

At first blush, one might think that these kinds of distinctions were part of Scriabin's "craziness," but the more I got into it, the more I was thinking "crazy like a fox."
It doesn't mean he WASN'T really crazy :-) but these details are incredibly well thought out, and very meaningful for the whole.

P.S. I love the 2nd and 3rd sonatas too, and I greatly envy those who play ALL the Scriabin sonatas.

Thanks for answering everything as you did. It's incredibly exciting to be on such a terrific forum, and I'm glad to have found some of the great members already.

It's especially exciting to realize that we performers in Warsaw had listeners and admirers that we didn't even know about! Indeed I hope we will meet in the future.

Regarding Mr. Ossowski's answer to the question about whether there will definitely be a 2nd amateur competition in 3 years: What made it great was that almost immediately he started going off in other directions, and I was more than happy to do that with him. Pretty soon, other people joined in, and before long we were talking about EVERYTHING.
The answer to the basic question was YES, with the footnote that we never know what might happen in the world that might disturb any plans. Specifically what he referred to was the "financial meltdown," but he quickly mentioned that Poland has been in better shape than most western countries because the banking practices did not go crazy. The conversation went on and on, in a wonderful and interesting way and in many new directions. My wife and I (as well as the others who joined in) felt HONORED to have Mr. Ossowski taking the time to speak with us in this manner, and to let us get to know him in a deeper way. He is a truly remarkable person. I don't even know what is his official "title" with the organization; maybe officially he is just the "translator." But really he is much more.

I am glad that you are being objective on this matter, and more importantly see my points. My only problem is that people are not willing to acknowledge that it is unfair competition between real amateur and people who went to music school. Very few real amateurs have the kind of musical background as those who went to pursue music degrees. You may practice hours for a competitions, but very unlikely that you spent time learning all the history, theory etc like those who went to music school.

And how's all that time spent learning the history of music (instead of practicing for hours!) going to give the conservatory student an advantage over the amateur who studied for years with a great teacher and practiced for hours?

It won't. I agree that music history is important (and I enjoy it very much), but it's something easily gained on your own time by reading books and listening to Dr. Robert Greenburg's lecture series with The Teaching Company.

Yes -- again, I agree with you completely from a theoretical view.
BTW.......just a note of no particular significance :-) ......I really DO have all or almost all the history and theory knowledge. What I lack is the right kind of mechanics and (I guess) habits about actually playing the piano.

But maybe that's just two different ways of expressing a very similar thing.

Yes -- as per my above post, I agree with the gist of what you're saying.
I'm not lacking on the theory or history. But I'm quite lacking on actually playing the piano.
That difference between me and those with professional piano training is huge.

This thread has some interesting and difficult questions as to the difference between amateur and professional pianists.

There is only one difference. One is paid money. The other isn't. Whether money is derivied directly or indirectly, same deal.

Ok, I played for a lot of money & I was "terrible" pianist but a professional by definition. Now I don't perform professionally, I have elevated to higher technique. For those who don't understand "higher technique", that means I can approach Liszt's transcendental etudes (for instance) seriously. By "seriously" I mean, with expectation of meeting all the technical challenges at performance speed.

I think the amateur pianist is better

Hakki, I think I can see why you didn't put this under "Piano Concerts Recitals and Competitions." I did go ahead and put a thread there, and basically nobody's noticing.
I guess people don't look 'all the way down there' very much.....

Somehow, this discussion about the difference between amateurs and professionals reminds me of that bit of dialogue in "Pride and Prejudice" between Colonel Fitzwilliam and Lady Catherine:

Well here's what that passage brings to mind: I think most of us contestants in the amateur competitions likewise think we're special in some similar respect, till we enter the competitions and see how many others there are! From a personal standpoint, this is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand it somewhat shatters our proud illusion of uniqueness, but on the other, it's great to have company.
P.S. From your post I got curious about your BLOG and put a comment there.

Mark -- thanks for the comment. I fixed my error.

Let's use example: Person A (Engineering Student) and Person B (Piano Performance Student), assume both of them have the same amount of knowledge and experience on playing piano before they decided to pursue their major in college. From the time B made decision to pursue for a piano degree, this person will push really hard to practice day and night to get into a music school. At least 1.5 prior the fall semester, yet A person will reduce substantially his piano playing activities, because he needed to study his SAT etc.

Once they got into college, A will not have time to study piano like when he was in high school, yet B kept practicing really hard or even much harder to get good grade in piano performance classes, not to mention B need to learn other music classes to achieve a level of a professional musician. So both of them were going totally in the opposite direction. For the next 4 years, the gap will be wider and wider.

Now, if we count the number of years B studied and praticed piano really hard was 1.5 + 4 = 5.5 years, yet A stopped studying and practicing piano causing his ability to deteriorate so I will give A = -1 year. Therefore, the total difference in year = 5.5 yr + 1 yr = 6.5yr.

6.5 yrs difference is not easy to catch up...... Unless, A goes back to his old routine of playing piano which is very unlikely, because A has other things to do.....In the mean time being, B keeps working in the piano playing industry.....so the gap is wider and wider.

That is why I really think it is an unfair competition. It feels good if amateur pianists can beat professional ones like what Mark said. But it is very unlikely.....So far I have not seen any real amateur pianists can beat ex-conservatory studetns at the Van Cliburn Amateur Competition....

Andrew Mays has Master Degree in Piano performance, Paul Romero received Master degree for compostion from Curtis, etc, etc. Virtually all of them have music degree.

I think it goes beyond how you put it, which was mostly in terms of the AMOUNT of training and practicing. There are two other factors that I think are even more critical.

The main one (IMO) is that the time and years IN OUR YOUTH count much more, especially in early youth. Really it's very much like learning a LANGUAGE (and it sort of IS).

Plus, "habits" are hard to break, so, even if someone (like me) started playing very young but wasn't serious about it and/or didn't have real good training till much later, you might never be able to catch up to those others, no matter how many hours or years you put into it, because in a way the die is cast.

Of course I don't mean you can't get better, or even become excellent. Just that it's a handicap, and there's a difference. For example, I think the Scriabin video that I have in the youtube contest is real good, but I realize that "here and there" are things that betray my lack of a more serious background -- and that's the case with everything I play, even on a good day.

Personally, I'd much rather major in engineering and play the piano well, rather than play the piano like a virtuoso, yet end up being a starved church mouse musician. Which is realistically where a lot of people who only do music end up, unless they have supervirtuoso abilities, and are in line to be the next Kissin.

My assumption is that both have the same background. In reality, most people who went for a music degree had much more extensive background. I was just illustrating the last 5 or 6 years. Most students who went to music school had dedicated most of their life to play piano. This makes the competition is becoming extremely unfair.

Horowitzian.....THANKS GOD, I am an engineer.... I agree with you, I am happy for what little talent that I have in piano. I'd rather not to play well, but be good in other things. In order to make big money in piano, ones need to be very good. yet in engineering, one does not need to be very good to make decent money.

I think it was before the competition, the organizer said they would make a DVD or CD with selected performances from the competition.

Yes -- I hope we'll be "selected."

Yes, I'd be happy to have just one minute.

They're nuts if they don't at least include your G minor polonaise.
I think it should BEGIN any CD that they put out, just like it began the competition.

I know someone who participated in this competition some years back and thought it was unfair because he was working hard to make a living and so didn't have as much time to practice as he'd like, and there were contestants who were retired and could practice all day every day, which put him at an "unfair" disadvantage. Life is frequently unfair in some way or another, if you choose to see it that way.

It seems to me that for you, you are determined to have your own personal definition of amateur that doesn't fit most of the ones in the real world. I wonder how you arrived at it, because it seems mainly to serve to make you unhappy, and that's all it does. Oh right, I forgot, it seems to give you a nice buzz of self-righteousness, too.

There is really no direct link between being an amateur and the amount of training one has, or level of accomplishment, no matter how much you would like to create one. How did you arrive at the conclusion that there was one, anyway? Once again, it has to be pointed out that one gold medal winner of the regular, non-amateur Van Cliburn contest was an amateur who had never been in a conservatory or university piano program. At the time of his win, he totally fit into your own personal definition of amateur. For some reason, I suspect that if he'd been in the amateur competition, you would have found some reason to find that his presence was unfair, simply because he was "too good", and for no other reason. To my way of thinking, his win completely undermines your argument.

On the other hand, I will agree that there are people who really are way too professional who slip through the amateur competition's screening because the rules are too loose. One guy who posted a video actually concertizes all over the midwest, earns money at it, and his bio in concert programs states that his has a dual career as a radio announcer and concert pianist. And he still has the gall to enter this amateur competition. Now, to my mind that is really dishonest, unlike your quibble with training and accomplishment, because the guy actually states that being concert pianist is his career (and not "amateur concert pianist"). There is something really wrong with that picture.

There was no screening in many competitions I know of.


One can always say the main source of income is from the other job. If you google the name of each contestant, you'd find many more than just this one person.

Sorry; that wasn't clear. I meant the screening that results from following the rules, not some separate process.



Well, yes, I assumed that's what the guy I mentioned would say. But it doesn't change the fact that he actually is a professional pianist, and that on that point, the rules need some refinement.

I haven't the patience to check out all the others, but I did notice there was another pianist who stood out as being exceptional, and he was apparently a professional pianist for years, and worked as a collaborator with many well-known musicians. Again, the rules might get tweaked so that people who have ever had a career as a pianist would be eliminated, rather than just the ones who currently have a career.

I can see that changing the rules to cover more and more situations is a slippery slope, but it doesn't seem too much to add in some language that would eliminate people who are acting as professional pianists, regardless of how much of their income is involved, and also ones who have ever had a career as professional pianists.

But of course, the people who run the competition would need to want to eliminate those pianists in the interest of making the competition more equitable, and I am not sure the Cliburn Amateur is particularly interested in that.

Yes.....It seems like LA was answering in terms of how those people are within the rules.
But you're talking about what you think of the rules.

I personally wouldn't be a hard liner on defining an amateur, even though I'd 'benefit' if they did.
But I certainly agree that quite a few of the people who meet the amateur criteria aren't "really" amateurs in terms of how most people think of amateur vs. professional musicians.

But, need we say, we can't expect any of the various competitions to be more "purist" or "correct" about it. They'll continue defining their criteria according to whatever they think benefits them the most.

I think just by using the terms amateur vs professional loosely, one can easily lean over one way or the other.

Here are a couple examples.

From 2006 to 2008 when Lance Armstrong retired from bicycle racing, was he an amateur cyclist during that time? Could any amateur cyclist keep up with him?

Is Michael Jordan an amateur basketball player now?

Those examples are good, because they are EXTREME examples and therefore show very clearly how the competitions' definitions can miss the usual spirit of "amateur."

But the trouble is......well a couple of things:

-- It's very hard if not impossible to have a definition that's 100% good, and....

-- The events would just be WORSE if they excluded too many of the "not-really-amateurs."

Worse for the audiences, worse for the organizations, and in many ways, worse for us "real" amateurs too.

As you can see, I'm sort of a "centrist" on this.