I saw from a couple of old threads that our member Pianoloverus used to study with Richard Casper.

And I see that he wondered if it was indeed Richard Casper that he noticed in the audience during the '09 Cliburn competition. Yes, it probably was.

Richard has attended the last two amateur Cliburn competitions, which is how I know him. His wife is Elizabeth Carr (who wrote the biography of Shura Cherkassky) and we spent quite a bit of time with them at the '07 event (through mutual acquaintances and mostly as a group), not so much this time -- we just chatted a little.

Since I had just seen him again, I was curious to "search" about him on this site to see if his name has come up, which is how I noticed that Pianoloverus studied with him. It seems likely that Richard would have gone to the professional Cliburn competition as well. And BTW if an elegant tall lady with big hair was seen around him, that's Elizabeth.

He and Elizabeth always have definite impressions of the contestants, but share them only discreetly. At the '07, he had a neat line about my playing. I had played a Scarlatti sonata, and he noted that I might have played it a bit slower. I said that it's marked "as fast as possible." His answer: "Yes, but not faster than possible."

That doesn't exactly narrow it down in Dallas.

Yeah, I guess not.

But she was the tallest with the biggest.

Mark: Thank you for giving this information. I had seen him quite a few times at concerts in NYC although he lived in New England. I think he retired fairly recently as director of a music conservatory up there. I didn't know his wife's name or that she wrote the Cherkassky bio(which I've read and enjoyed). I knew Richard was a big Cherkassky fan and saw him at Cherkassky's memorial concert for Vladimir Horowitz at Steinway Hall.

No problem! Of course I was hoping you'd see this. Also of course I was quite interested to see that you had studied with him.