May 17, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Maggie Estes, Director of Marketing
mestes@cliburn.org,
817.738.6536
Fort Worth, Texas, MAY 17, 2011-For the first time ever,
all performances and awards ceremonies for the Van Cliburn
Foundation's International Piano Competition for
Outstanding Amateurs™ will be streamed
live over the Internet. Viewers can visit
Cliburn.org to witness live events, as well as to
access on-demand videos for past performances and special
behind-the-scenes footage. Viewers can also participate in a live
chat with other fans, share the video with friends on Facebook or
Twitter, and embed the video player on their own Web site.
The webcast and on-demand videos will also be accessible on mobile
phones by using browsers to visit Cliburn.org or, for enhanced
content, by downloading the free Livestream app available for
iPhones and iPads at
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/livestream-viewer/id379623629?mt=8.
Patrons can visit livestream.com/vancliburnfoundation now to sign
up to receive email reminders before the start of each
broadcast.
The Cliburn Web site will feature an active blog, with regular
updates from official competition blogger Kevin Salfen, acting
chair of music history at Southern Methodist University, as well as
from Cliburn staff.
The sixth International Piano Competition for Outstanding
Amateurs will take place May 23-29, 2011 in Ed Landreth Auditorium
on the campus of TCU and will feature 72 of the world's best
non-professional pianists, ranging in age from 35 to 79 and
representing 10 countries and 17 nationalities. Tickets to
competition rounds are on sale now at Cliburn.org or 817.738.6536
($10-35 for individual tickets, $100-130 for packages).
The Foundation has long shown passionate commitment to using the
latest technology to support its core mission: the worldwide
promulgation of classical music. That began as early as 1962, when
the first Van Cliburn International Piano Competition become the
first music competition in the world to use a computer to tabulate
jury votes and decide a winner. The professional Competition went
live online in 1997 with audio only, and the last three webcasts
(2001, 2005, 2009) have continued to expand in content and reach.
The webcast of the latest (Thirteenth) Competition in 2009 saw a
total of 422,765 visits and recorded 158,096 absolute unique
visitors from 157 countries during the 17-day event, with another
136,322 unique visitors viewing videos on demand since the close of
the competition.
Following the Competition, select competitor performances from the
Semifinal and Final Rounds will be broadcast locally on WRR
Classical 101.1 FM, and will be heard nationally on (and
distributed internationally via) American Public Media's
Performance Today, America's most popular daily classical
radio program, with more than 1.3 million weekly listeners on 260
stations around the country.
About the sixth International Piano Competition for
Outstanding Amateurs
Established in 1999, the International Piano Competition
for Outstanding Amateurs was the first of its kind in the United
States and celebrates the importance of music-making as a vital
part of daily life. The competition is open to pianists age 35 and
older who do not derive their principal source of income through
piano performance or instruction. Over the course of the week,
these talented musicians will compete in three elimination rounds,
have opportunities to explore chamber music works with professional
musicians, and participate in symposia and other social
events.
From May 23-29, 2011, the sixth Amateur Competition will bring
together a diverse group of 72 of the world's finest
non-professional pianists, ranging in age from 35 to 79 years old.
They represent 17 nationalities and hail from 10 countries:
Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico,
the United Kingdom, and the United States. Representing a broad
range of occupations and professions, the competition will feature
performances by attorneys, physicians, business executives, and
architects, as well as by a jeweler, a screenwriter, a retired
dancer, a kindergarten teacher, and a Formula One racecar designer,
among others.
Competitors will be judged by a jury of distinguished performers
and scholars, and by a press jury comprised of some of the nation's
foremost music critics. The jurors will oversee the competition's
three elimination rounds and will announce the winners in a special
awards ceremony on Sunday, May 29 at 6:30 p.m. Three top-prize
winners, each receiving a cash award, will be selected.
Additionally, jury discretionary, press jury, and specific
programming prizes will also be awarded.
Tickets and information are available now at Cliburn.org or by
calling 817.738.6536.
About the Van Cliburn Foundation
The Van Cliburn Foundation disseminates classical music
worldwide, and launches and nurtures young artists' careers through
the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the
ensuing three-year international concert tours of its medalists,
award-winning documentaries, and a syndicated radio series
dedicated to the competition and its most memorable performances.
By making the competition available in its entirety on the
Internet, the Foundation has extended its outreach to listeners in
every corner of the globe.
For audiences in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, the Van Cliburn
Foundation promotes great music and world-class artists through the
annual Cliburn Concerts series. It reaches over 30,000 elementary
school students annually with the education programs of Musical
Awakenings®. In 1999, it established the International Piano
Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, which The Boston
Globe proclaimed "a celebration of music, and the people who
have to make music, no matter what."
Visit Cliburn.org to learn more about the Cliburn as it approaches
the 50th anniversary of the First Van Cliburn International Piano
Competition.
ExxonMobil is the Principal Corporate Sponsor of
the Van Cliburn Foundation. American Airlines;
"Crystelle Waggoner Charitable Trust,"
Bank of America, Trustee;
Steinway & Sons; and XTO Energy
Inc. are Official Corporate Sponsors. Official Sponsors
are the Amon G. Carter Foundation, Arts
Council of Fort Worth & Tarrant County,
Beaumont Foundation of America, the
Burnett Foundation, the Sid W. Richardson
Foundation, and the T. Boone Pickens
Foundation. Star-Telegram is the
exclusive print media sponsor, and WRR 101.1 FM is
the official radio station of Cliburn Concerts.
