FIFTEENTH VAN CLIBURN INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION
May 25–June 10, 2017
Bass Performance Hall • Fort Worth, Texas USA
Leonard Slatkin, jury chairman
The best pianists in the world.
The ideal performance environment.
Unrivaled international exposure.
The launch of a career.
Widely considered one of the top music contests on the planet, the Cliburn Competition attracts the best pianists ages 18 to 30. In 2017, 290 applications were received. From those, 146 were selected for live Screening Auditions in London, Hannover, Budapest, Moscow, Seoul, New York, and Fort Worth, where they were heard by a Screening Jury of five accomplished, highly regarded pianists (Dmitri Alexeev, Russia; Michel Beroff, France; Janina Fialkowska, Poland/Canada; James Parker, Canada; and Pamela Mia Paul, United States).
The 30 carefully selected competitors were welcomed to Fort Worth in May with signature Texas warmth and provided with the ideal conditions to perform at the highest level. In Cliburn tradition, they stayed with host families in their homes—each with a grand Steinway & Sons piano—and are cared for by a volunteer force of close to 1,200.
The fifteenth edition boasted an international jury comprising some of the most esteemed pianists of our time, who will use each performance in each round to learn more about the competitors and make their decisions. Top notch artistic collaborators participate this year: all competitors perform a newly commissioned work by Marc-André Hamelin; semifinalists perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and Nicholas McGegan; and finalists perform with the Brentano String Quartet, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and Leonard Slatkin.
All carefully planned details were put into place with the goal of finding the pianist most ready to immediately begin a professional career. In addition to cash and other prizes, three medalists win three years of personalized artist management and hundreds of concert bookings across the United States and, for the gold medalist, the world. Collectively, the winners earn over $1 million in the three years following the Cliburn.
New partnerships with major broadcast entities medici.tv and Fathom Events ensured that the 2017 Competition is the most highly visible music competition in the world, giving all competitors a chance for unprecedented exposure on a global scale and providing more ways than ever for people around the world to enjoy the beautiful music made at the Cliburn.
“… A CROSS BETWEEN THE MISS AMERICA PAGEANT, THE OLYMPIC GAMES, THE ACADEMY AWARDS, AND THE PULITZER PRIZE.”
—The Boston Globe
THE RESULTS
WEBCAST
Over 110 hours of live concerts, commentary, interviews, features, and more was broadcast for free online through partnership with medici.tv, the world’s largest classical music channel
Total video views: 4.8 million
Average view time duration: 70 minutes
169 countries; 8,858 cities
Top 10: United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, France, South Korea, China, United Kingdom, Germany
#CLIBURN2017 SOCIAL REACH
medici.tv social channels: 8.9 million
@thecliburn; #cliburn2017 viral: 113 million
Cliburn Facebook Live / Videos: 290,000 views
The New York Times interview with gold medalist: 260,000 views
IN PERSON AUDIENCE
Number of concerts: 29
Number of festival events: 14
Total in-person attendance: 40,000
Festival event attendance: 4,340
Sundance Square simulcast attendance: 4,500
MEDIA COVERAGE (May 1–June 19, 2017)
Over 1,200 articles or reports
Reach: 940 million
Media value: $8.7 million
Countries: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Italy, Korea, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Vietnam