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Congrats to TIM ADRIANSON for making the finals! -- very well deserved. Jeremy Stone played very well too, but....there were just more good performances than there are places in the finals. I thought 9 out of the 16 semi-finalists were solidly in the running for the 6 spots in the finals and I felt that the selections would depend not particularly on who was better than whom, but on preferences about which kinds of things should be valued higher than others. (BTW, 1 of those who advanced was among those who I thought weren't in the running at all. Wild horses would not drag that person's identity out of me.)
What Tim brought was his usual rolling-out of modern music (in this case, 21st century) that most of us would have never heard, and in many cases, have never even heard of the composers. He always plays it well, generally using the scores -- he must be an incredible sight-reader as well as an incredibly fast learner, and it also helps that he has great fingers. Arguably Tim should always make the finals in these amateur competitions, because there's nobody else like him in these events, he does it well, and (I think) it's a valuable kind of thing to have.

On a related note (and I don't think anyone will care but I want to say it anyway) I apologize for FORGETTING to have mentioned his making the semi-finals! It was weird -- I certainly didn't 'really' forget about him or didn't know he was there. I mean, I was spending time with him, talking with him, also with his wife who was helping the staff to run the event. But I basically took his making the 2nd round for granted, and in the midst of going crazy about my colleague Jeremy making it on his first try and Thomas Maurice coming back so well from his medical stuff and Gorden not advancing, I got distracted and just forgot to mention it. I realized it as soon as I started driving to the auditorium for the day. I was dying to rectify it, explained it to Tim and his wife and asked if she had internet access. She said sure, and lent me her iPhone. I'll spare you the rest of the details, except to say that I've never worked a smart phone, was sitting there for 15 minutes trying like a moron to log on but couldn't, even with her help, I was missing someone's playing, people out there were cracking up (with good reason), and of course meanwhile neither Tim nor his wife really cared that I didn't mention that he had advanced. It didn't make me feel any less guilt, which I'm somewhat assuaging with this post.

The other finalists (together with Tim Adrianson):

Carl DiCasoli
Amber Glynn
Cathryn Lai
Thomas Maurice
Eberhard Zagrosek


P.S. A couple of people at the event mentioned to me that they lurk on this site sometimes. We have a lot more fans (if that's the correct term) than we know.

Fantastic! Glad to hear about Tim Adrianson.

I heard him play one of Steve Chandler's piece at the Composer's Coner. He sounded awesome.

I do hope things go well for him at the competition.

Best wishes.

Results:

1. Zagrosek
2. Maurice
3. DiCasoli
...then Lai, Glynn (tie); Adrianson

It was kind of funny with Zagrosek. He felt he wasn't even going to advance from the 1st round, but as I told him, it seems that especially in amateur competitions and especially in the 1st round, the judges aren't necessarily most influenced by factors that we worry so much about, like 'mistakes' or whatever; they look seriously at what you showed about what kind of basic pianist and musician you are. He wasn't particularly optimistic after the 2nd round either -- and here he is, the winner.
His playing showed great depth and emotion, and evocation of moods, and in his playing there is always a sense of striving for understanding and meaning. He has been a finalist in several competitions before. It's great to see him being a winner.

Adrianson came in 6th? That is still very good seeing it is very difficult to place that high up in such a competition.

I wondered about the final result, so thanks for posting MarcC, .

Considering what Tim does, I think it's especially hard to compare him to the rest of the field. Many people think it's hard to compare almost any different kinds of things -- like, how do you compare someone's Liszt Rhapsody with someone's Mozart's Sonata and someone else's Bach Partita. I generally don't think that's particularly harder than comparing people playing very similar repertoire. But Tim -- what he does is an altogether different kind of thing, with (IMO) extra value because of its uniqueness -- i.e. constantly bringing new music to the events -- and impressive on a totally other kind of level. He's just in a different category. And yes -- however you slice it, just making the finals is a great achievement.

Tim played well for the pieces that he chose. The question, can he play main stream pieces? Other participants tried to show as much variety as possible.
With the pieces that he chose, he can easily get away from :

1. interpretation - virtually nobody knows what the typical interpretation of those pieces are.
2. accuracy - he can press 20 notes wrong, nobody will really know.

That is why it is hard to judge him, and also it is hard to compare him to others. Overall, his playing is always high quality, entertaining and musical. In the previous competitions, I think the judges were just not sure whether to let him to advance to the final, for his unusual choice of repertoire.

I think the judges in this 2013 Boston competition have different criteria.

Mark, I agree 100% with your assessment of Tom Maurice -- that was the best I've ever heard him play, and just for the reasons you mentioned -- less of the "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down" factor; more emphasis on virtuosity in service to musicality. Bad back and all, IMO he's graduated from "excellent" to "superb". I was slightly disappointed that he didn't get 1st place, but Eberhard's pianism has also blossomed wonderfully over the years, and to my mind the difference between 1st and 2nd place was VERY close indeed!

I've read some of the other comments -- will respond when I get enough time to "get my thoughts together".

Speaking of champions not necessarily getting past a 1st round....it happens to the best of them:

Nadal immediately out in Wimbledon

Tim Adrianson created the "Perfect Storm" with this jury. He also plays that stuff incredibly well of course. I cannot understand how Ayuko Meuller did not advance. She is glorious!

+1

I'd like to add my congratulations to Tim for doing well in Boston. I wasn't following the competition but Mark's comments about Tim's repertoire hit especially close to home for me. Again congratulations to Tim!

A few additional comments, as promised:

1 I've been to Boston now four times, and the juries have been exceptionally generous to me, bumping me to the Finals three times and the SemiFinals once. And it is because they have been especially appreciative of my programming efforts, placing rarely-heard works under a thematic umbrella of my choosing.

2 I see no need to apologize for this, or feel the need to prove that I can play "standard" literature. Most of the others already do that, and a lot of them better than me. Why not introduce stuff that others have very likely not heard -- and that storehouse is just enormous!

3 Just speaking for myself, I really don't care whether other competitors have had extensive previous formal training or not; i.e., that we need to identify the degree of amateur "purity". If they received it, but are doing something else as their primary income source, then more power to them. Personally, I love hearing the excellence that degreed candidates typically possess.

4 Having said that, a few of us feel that there need to be some enrichment of acknowledgement for those who are not so technically virtuosic but still deliver musically excellent presentations. I've been amply rewarded for my sheer audacity, but I would also like to see an award for "most moving", or "most poetic" or "best performance of an intermediate difficulty piece", or some such thing -- so that not-so-virtuosic people have a shot at some special recognition.

Your creative programming is quite appreciated Tim, as a much-needed foil against the next version of Gaspard. Keep those unknown pieces coming!

Tim: Points 2 and 4--Here! Here!

I think "virtuoso" repertoire is largely over-rated, often just so much sound and fury, signifying nothing more than lots of active, well-trained twitchy nerve cells. (I do have my favorite war-horses and go-tos to listen to, however. )

Having had the pleasure of hearing you play live on several occasions, you do what you do SO WELL (poised, intelligent, respectful and electric are descriptors that come immediately to mind) that, in my opinion, the fact that you advance in these competitions is evidence that the juries can be aurally defibrillated to acknowledge their appreciation of music, after perhaps fogging the mirror in the morning to make sure they are still alive and rubbing two ear hairs together on the way to the jury box. If I were on a jury, I'd be eagerly looking forward to see and hear what you were going to do next. ("Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a calico Angora out of my hat!")

Congratulations, Tim!

I was there for both Semi-final and Final round, and I very much enjoyed the experience. Talking to some of the competitors was very inspiring. I even said hello to Mark! (but I can't send him PM here for whatever reason).

To enhance the entire experience, my friend and I were taking notes on each performance - from their dress, hand movements, music selections, performing style and all. One of the board members came to me and asked if I was a reporter or reviewer. I am simply a follower and music supporter. I had 4 out of 6 finalists correctly, and I guessed all top 3 correctly - although not in exactly the right order.

Congratulations to all.

That is very cool, Midlife! That must be very validating to you, the judges, and, I would think, any competitors that might peek into this thread! Wouldn't it be fun to compare notes with the judges?

I didn't get a chance to read through the entire thread yet, but I must vehemently disagree with this statement.

I did see that several members made it to the semi-finals (at the least), so congratulations!

Aha! So that was you!

It was very nice to meet you -- very glad you came up and said hi. And it's always a nice surprise when a 'stranger' turns out not to be a stranger at all! BTW I didn't notice you taking notes, even though I was sitting right behind you for part of it. You must have been doing it pretty discreetly. And I loved your interest and enthusiasm, also of course your friendliness.

I think if he said "with few exceptions" cannot be a real amateur it would be correct. From what I've seen of these competitions, most of the competitors who play the most technically difficult pieces with aplomb fall into the "formerly studying to be a professional pianist" category. Some of the real amateurs who attempt the hardest pieces are I think clearly struggling and not always winning the struggle.

I agree, and I'd even say you're probably being a little generous in how you're putting it. Speaking as someone who has sometimes struggled 'perhaps a bit' in these competitions with pieces like Chopin's 4th Ballade, I have to say that it was painful to hear a couple of people who attempted the piece in this event. It was perhaps even more painful to hear one of those performances getting a huge ovation.
The judges, however, weren't fooled.

Sometimes, though, the struggles may be misleading. For example, I know that at least one of those people from this event is fully capable of playing the piece. I can only assume he hadn't had time to prepare it as he would have wished, and that's probably often a factor in these events.