2001 International Piano Festival Competition finalists Ji Yeon Shin, Eun Taek Kim, and Darrett Zusko with Conservatory Dean Robert Dodson. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ANNA HOFFMANN Canadian Pianist Wins the 2001 Oberlin International Piano Festival Competition By Marci Janas '91
			Pianist Darrett Zusko, 16, of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, has won first prize in the seventh annual Oberlin International Piano Competition and Festival which concluded Sunday, July 28. One of seven finalists, Zusko performed works by Beethoven, Scriabin, and Balakirev. A student of Ronald Turini (a faculty member at the University of Western Ontario), Zusko is a past winner of the Bartók-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International Piano Competition. He received a $4,000 prize in the Oberlin competition. Eun Taek Kim, 13, and Ji Yeon Shin, 15, both of Korea, shared the second prize. Each were awarded $1,500. Kim studies in the pre-college division of the Seoul Art Center School with Jong Pil Lim. Shin, who this year won the Yewon Art School Concerto Competition, is a student of Seung-Hye Choi. The Oberlin competition, for pianists ages 13 to 18, took place in the Conservatory's Warner Concert Hall, and included entrants from five countries. Jurors for the competition were Jerome Lowenthal, Professor of Piano at The Juilliard School; Gary Amano, Director of Piano Studies at Utah State University; Monique Duphil, Oberlin Professor of Pianoforte; and Dean of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music Robert K. Dodson. The pedagogical nature of Oberlin's Piano Competition and Festival makes it unique among international competitions, according to Festival Director Robert Shannon, Professor of Pianoforte at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. "We provide students and teachers attending our festival with an intensive, in-depth opportunity to expand their knowledge of music history, theory and pedagogy," says Shannon. "We make clear to them--through the presence of and the presentations by renowned educators such as Jerome Lowenthal and Gary Amano--the vital connection of these elements to on-stage performance."
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