July 22, 2005—Young Ohio pianists from Amherst, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Elyria, New Albany, Solon, and Pepper Pike are among the more than 30 young musicians from cities throughout the United States, Canada, China, and Korea participating in the 11th annual Oberlin International Piano Competition and Festival, sponsored by the Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College. The weeklong event will take place Sunday, July 24, through Sunday, July 31, 2005, with the finals round--where up to six cash prizes are awarded--being held in Warner Concert Hall Saturday, July 30, at 8 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the finals round will be broadcast live on 104.9 FM WCLV, Cleveland's classical music radio station. Robert Conrad, co-founder and president of WCLV, will serve as the master of ceremonies; Jacqueline Gerber, the host of WCLV'S morning show First Program, will be the on-air host. Audience members will be invited to vote for their favorite performer.

The participants from Ohio are Corey Knick, 16, of Amherst; Katie Florez, 13, of Cincinnati; Katherine Bi, 17, of Cleveland; Sean Wilkins, 17, of Elyria; Michelle Zhuravlev, 17, of New Albany, Jeremy Paul, 13, of Solon, and two sisters from Pepper Pike, Katrina and Emma Bobbs, ages 16 and 13.

The competition is for pianists between the ages of 13 and 18; those accepted were chosen following a preliminary taped audition round. Of the pianists who traveled to Oberlin to compete, 12 to 16 will be selected from a first performance round and will advance to the third round of competition. Up to six pianists remaining after the third round will perform in the competition finals.

Oberlin Professor of Piano Robert Shannon has directed the competition and festival since its inception. Interviewed last year by the Morning Journal (Lorain, Ohio), he defined the purpose of the event: "We want to stimulate interest in young pianists and give them something to shoot for. We combine [the competition] with an educational program. We try to give them a taste of what studying music at a high level in college is like."

The festival faculty--composed of renowned professors from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and distinguished guest artists--will offer private lessons, master classes, recitals, and lectures throughout the week that will provide the festival participants with intensive and in-depth opportunities to expand their knowledge of music history, theory, and pedagogy, as well as the vital connection of those three elements to on-stage performance.

Guest judges for the final round of the competition and guest faculty for the festival are Professor Matti Raekallio of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland and Assistant Professor of Music Mykola Suk from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

They will be joined in their final deliberations by Associate Professor of Piano Alvin Chow and Professor of Piano Sanford Margolis of Oberlin's faculty, and they will award cash prizes ranging from $4,000 to $100. In addition, audience members attending the finals concert will cast their vote for the "Audience Favorite," which carries a cash prize of $100.

More information about the competition and festival is available by calling Assistant to the Dean of the Conservatory Anna Hoffmann at 440-775-8044 or by visiting the festival's web site.

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865 and situated within the intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since 1867, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. Renowned internationally as a professional music school of the highest caliber and pronounced a "national treasure" by the Washington Post, Oberlin's alumni have gone on to achieve illustrious careers in all aspects of the serious music world. Its students and alumni have won top prizes in numerous international piano competitions, including the Van Cliburn, the Fryderyk Chopin, the Queen Elisabeth, the Arthur Rubinstein, the Walter W. Naumberg, the Unisa International Piano Competition (South Africa), the American Pianists Association Classical Fellowship competition, the World Piano Competition, the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition, and the Busoni Competition. The Conservatory's collection of 1,700 period and modern musical instruments includes 199 Steinway grand pianos. Oberlin, an All-Steinway School, is Steinway & Sons oldest continuous client, with a relationship dating back more than 125 years.

Concert Schedule

Note: Programs and artists are subject to change. These concerts are free and open to the public.

Faculty Recital, Peter Takács. Sunday, July 24, 8 p.m. Warner Concert Hall. Program: Works by Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, and Ravel.

Faculty Recital, Robert Shannon and Haewon Song. Monday, July 25, 8 p.m. Kulas Recital Hall. Program: Works by Czerny and Rzewski.

Faculty Recital, David Breitman. Tuesday, July 26, 8 p.m. Kulas Recital Hall. Program: Works by CPE Bach, Beethoven, and Haydn performed on two copies of Viennese pianos, a five-octave Anton Walter from 1790 that was made in Connecticut by Philip Belt in 1975, and a six and one-half octave Congrad Graf from 1819 that was made in 2004 by Paul McNulty in Divisov, Czech Republic.

Guest Recital, Matti Raekallio. Wednesday, July 27, 8 p.m. Warner Concert Hall. Program: The complete 27 Études of Frédéric Chopin.

Guest Recital, Mykola Suk. Thursday, July 28, 8 p.m. Warner Concert Hall. Program: Works by Haydn, Prokofiev, Dvorak, and Ravel.

Semifinalists' Concert, Friday, July 29, 8 p.m. Warner Concert Hall.
 
Competition Finals Concert, Saturday, July 30, 8 p.m. Warner Concert Hall. (This concert will be broadcast live on WCLV 104.9 FM and on wclv.com.)

Oberlin Piano Competition and Festival
Guest Faculty Biographies

Matti Raekallio is a tenured professor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. Raekallio's class includes several top prize winners, among them the First Prize laureates in Leeds, ASA Dublin, London, Vienna (Beethoven), New York (Artists International), and Budapest (Liszt-Bartók). He has been a juror in several international competitions, including Shanghai, Vienna (Beethoven), Tokyo (PTNA), the Selection Committee of the "Gilmore Artist" as well as the American Pianists' Association Awards in the United States, and the Artur Rubinstein in Memoriam International Competition in Poland. His concerts and recordings, notably the three-CD set of the complete Prokofiev Piano Sonatas, for the Finnish Ondine label, have been widely praised. He has performed the complete Transcendental, Paganini, and Concert etudes by Liszt in a two-recital set. A central part of Raekallio's solo repertoire is the cycle of the complete 32 Beethoven sonatas, which he has presented eight times altogether. In addition to his extensive solo repertoire, Raekallio has given performances of 62 piano concertos. These include all of Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev, as well as rarities like the concerti by Busoni, Szymanowski, and Lutoslawski.

Mykola Suk is assistant professor of music at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has performed in solo recitals as well as soloist with major orchestras under leading conductors (most recently with the Russian National Symphony under Mikhail Pletnev), and at chamber music festivals throughout the former USSR, North America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and Asia. Suk has recorded for the Melodya, Russian Disc, Hungaraton, Melda and Troppe Note/Cambria labels. He studied at the Kiev Special Music School and at the Moscow Conservatory with Lev Vlasenko. In 1971 he was awarded the first prize and gold medal at the International Liszt-Bartok Competition in Budapest. Suk has formerly been on the faculties of the Kiev and Moscow Conservatories, the New England Conservatory of Music, and Columbia University.