A very strong round this evening — perhaps the best overall playing so far.  Ken and I were bantering back and forth with iChat the whole time.

Ang Li (24) seems to have racked up a considerable collection of conservatory degrees, including Manhattan, Curtis, Juilliard and the Royal Conservatory in Toronto.  Cliburn Juror Veda Kaplinsky is a recent teacher. Lately, Ang is a local girl: she’s a veteran of the 2005 Cliburn, and hangs her hat next door, at TCU.  Her Brahms f minor sonata was noble, handsome, brooding and very persuasive.  She then cleared the air with a pair of Debussy preludes (Minstrels, and Feux d’Artifice), both of which conveyed the right impression.  And she finished off with a favorite piece of mine, York Bowen’s Toccata, op.155.  Some of you may know that Stephen Hough has championed Bowen’s work.  The Toccata is really well written, and Ang did a bang-up job.  She’s not quite as technically dazzling as some of the others, but is solid and musical. It’ll be interesting to see if she gets promoted.

Boola, Boola Andrea!  Andrea Lam (27) comes from Down Under by way of Yale.  What was it she joked? That she had recently “liberated herself from her education”?  I’m predisposed to like Yalies. She’s a bubbly, warm person — very much a “whole” person — and she played like who she is.  The Fantasiestücke is my favorite Schumann (apart from the concerto), and she drew out all the characters with lots of color.  Andrea channeled Alicia DeLarrocha in a couple of the Goyescas.  I love these pieces: the Spanish “Pictures at an Exhibition” they are the only case I know of a piano suite being scaled up into an opera.  You might look up the tragic story of what happened to Granados and his beloved wife after he toured the U.S. in 1914, playing piano concerts and enjoying the spectacular success of the operatic performances at the Met. Andrea played the first piece (Los Requiebros) and the fourth one (the Maiden & the Nightingale). Beautiful playing.  And she finished up with Kernis’ Superstar Etude, based on Thelonius Monk’s Round About Midnight — which she credited Dean Robert Blocker at Yale for pitching to her. Maybe most important, she really smiled when she was done!  Enthusiasm counts for a lot, and it seems like nine out of ten of these competitors are molto serioso, and just not having fun.  I am confident we’ll hear more of her.  Brava!

Haochen Zhang (19), from China, is a student of Garry Graffman’s at Curtis these days, and the youngest competitor here.  A real prodigy.  His playing was exquisite and eloquent.  I liked the pairing of Beethoven Op.110 and Chopin’s Polonaise Fantaisie, both in Ab, both late piece, both intimate and searching.  Always a little disarming to hear such mature playing in the hands of someone so young.  And he finished off with Petrouchka, which was teriffic.  A phenom.  People will draw comparisons with Joyce Yang from 2005. Haochen may not exude all her charisma, but who does?  On the other hand, his musicality is terrific.  Wow.

Hard to imagine that Zhang & Lam won’t advance.

Bravo to all three.

Looking forward,

Mike (mike@media.mit.edu)

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