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This is day one of the preliminary round: Live stream of Boston Amateur Piano Competition from Longy School of Music(you will have to endure the occasional commercial...) I'm excited because two members of our amateur group (the Long Beach Piano Meetup Group), Gorden Cheng and Yvonne Tsai, are competing - way to go, guys!

Thank you for the link, but there doesn't seem to be any information whatsoever about the competition. When does the live feed start/end? Who's performing? Am I missing something?

My apologies - (I'm posting while manning my post at my workplace (bet no one else ever does that...) . Here's the Competition Home Page Boston Competition link with links on the RH side to "Competitors" (bios and repertoire for each round) and "Prelim Round Schedule".


(edit to correct typo)

Thank you for the link, ec! I noticed several Pianist Corner contributors in the schedule, and was sorry to have missed some performances. My hope, of course, is to catch them in the semi-finals!

Other Piano World members:

Judy Darst (musica71)
Tim Adrianson
Jeremy Stone (good friend and professional colleague in NY)

(Sorry to anyone I might be leaving out! Please let us know!)

And LisztAddict is here to watch.
(As am I.)

Jeremy has been in the Cliburn youtube contest but this is his 'debut' in the competitions. He played today, and I was thrilled to see him do splendidly.

Was looking for both LisztAddict and Mark C to be participating.

What happened to you guys?

Thanks, Mark, for your generous comment (above) as well as all of your support and good advice! --Jeremy

Bravo to Penny! I really enjoyed her Beethoven.

Tsai will probably advance too.

Bravo ! Mueller is in too.

Semifinalists

Zagrosek
Serio
Wang
Adrianson
Kokkinos
Stone
Liao
Maurice
Glynn
Ross
Penny
Barlow
Lai
Rezende
Dicasoli
Feng
......................
Congratulations to all!
I'm surprised Gorden isn't on the list.

I'm surprised too, as were many others.

Congratulations to Jeremy Stone! I was quite sure he'd advance, even in such a difficult field, and he did -- and it's an especially great achievement, considering that it was his first shot at these competitions. In the next round he plays Rhapsody in Blue, which I've heard him play and which I know is a great piece for him. Keep an eye on Jeremy -- we could very well be seeing him in the finals. I feel very happy for him and for other friends who are advancing, but I feel bad for those who aren't. I would note that there were other surprises besides what Jazzy said, including at least two other past 1st prize winners who didn't advance. These competitions are tough -- and, need we say, it's subjective.

Surprise, surprise. I didn't think it'd be that subjective. I heard Slavin over the webcast and thought he'd just sail through. Admittedly I missed Gorden but I've heard him many times in the past. It's going to be interesting.

Skimming through the bios of the semifinalists, I too agree that this is a tough competition.

I am surprised that Gorden did not advance. But, I wonder, whether it could have been different if he had chosen a different piece(s) for his first round.

Anyway, most of the semifinalists seem to be highly qualified for an amateur competition and in that regard the list is not so surprising. When I see even past prize winners not advancing, I once more realize that it is not easy to compete in these amateur competitions at all.

They better find another name instead of "amateur" for these competitions, because it has been causing a lot of conflict recently.

The real amateur pianists participating in these competitions are the minority. Most people are either ex-prodigy, piano degree people, or even ex-professionals. It will be very hard for real amateur pianists to get into semifinal. Generally, if we look at the pieces, we can tell their piano background. It is less likely for real amateurs to play Chopin Ballade well, only few real amateurs can do this, such as LisztAddict. However, some attempted with disappointing results.

You made the point well - I don't know what you mean by "real amateur" but to me any of the three groups of people you mentioned can be real amateur as well. Notice WIPAC does not use the word amateur in its name but most others do. The use of the word does have negative associations and its not in the favor of the organizing bodies.

My definition of "Real Amateur" = people who were not ex-prodigy, never pursued piano degree, never been a professional, never been in real professional competition. Basically, people who just took lesson once a week when they were young, and quit for many years, and come back to practice piano. We can see from the pieces that they use in amateur competitions. Typically real amateurs, they do not even have enough repertoire to play for a 55 min amateur competition. For example they use one sonata and break into two stages.

Yet, adults who can play, say, Mephisto Waltz well cannot be a real amateur. They must have fallen into one of the categories above.
As I said in my earlier post, there are real amateurs who attempted to play big pieces but did not play well. These are real amateurs who are too ambitious and do not know their ability. But again, it is OK. It is just for fun.

I agree with your definition except for the part about quitting piano which I don't see as at all relevant. Also, the "ex prodigy" is somewhat vague and one might leave that out also.

Unfortunately, for reasons discussed at length on previous threads its unlikely that amateur competitions will disallow these groups of people. A name other than amateur would be appropriate for most of these competitions in their present form because to my mind, and I think to the mind of most people, many of the participants are not what are usually thought of as amateurs. Something the equivalent of "not presently professional" would at least be more honest.

I agree 100%.....

It is a dilemma, if they do not allow a "Not presently professional" people, the competitions will be boring.

Life.

(Thanks for asking.)

For me, other life things have taken over for a while. I gather that for LA it's been partly the same plus maybe just wanting to take a break.


Some stuff about one of the other semi-finalists -- Thomas Maurice, who's a long-time friend from these events. I hadn't heard him in some years, mostly because he's been battling a very difficult back problem that made him have to withdraw from a couple of events that he was supposed to be in. If you've been following the streaming, he's the very tall guy who's using a cane to help him get around. I'm finding it enormously interesting to see how he has changed as a musician. He had been basically what I'd call a storming virtuoso. Now, he still has the technique, but he's more of an artist, much more reflective and with much more depth. He won 1st prize in the Colorado competition when I got 2nd, after having been considering dropping out of the amateur competition scene because of some issues at the previous event. I was one of the people who had urged him to stay in -- maybe I was the main one (we had a series of e-mails back and forth) -- and some people joked that if I had kept my mouth shut I would have won 1st prize. Besides that even 2nd prize was overachieving......I might well have gotten nothing, because I wouldn't have played as well. My acquaintance with him was inspiring and educational (BTW this kind of thing is part of why I'd hate to see the amateur competitions be more restrictive on what "amateur" means, but I won't wade into that debate yet again), but even more so, I didn't know a lot of people at that event, and if he hadn't been there, I wouldn't have had as much camaraderie, I wouldn't have been in as good a frame of mind, and I doubt I would have played as well. That was his first win, he had at least one more after that, and now he's back, better than ever. I look for him to make the finals and to have a real shot to win.