2106 Winner's Prize Package Largest Ever
The winner of the 2016 Cleveland International Piano Competition will receive the most substantial prize package in the event’s history, thanks to the generosity of committed patrons and the increasing global awareness of CIPC.
To begin, the first prize cash award, known as the Mixon First Prize in honor of its donors, Mal and Barbara Mixon, has been increased from $50,000 to $75,000. The Mixons have been providing the first prize cash award since 2005, and it is among the most generous of any piano competition in the world.
In addition to some 50 concert engagements in the U.S., the winner has been invited to perform in a number of prestigious European venues, including the Salle Cortot (Paris), the Barletta Piano Festival (Italy), the Armonie della Sera Piano Festival (Italy), the Duszniki Festival (Poland), and the Vilnius Piano Festival (Lithuania).Read more
Performance Order Announced
A drawing has been conducted to determine performance order for the 2016 Cleveland International Piano Competition & Festival. Pianists will perform in this order for the first and second round. The eight contestants who advance to the semi-final round will also remain in the original order. Performance order for the chamber music and concerto phases of the final round will be based on repertoire. Click HERE to watch a video of the drawing.
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35 Pianists Invited to CIPC 2016
Thirty-five contestants have been invited to participate in the 2016 Cleveland International Piano Competition & Festival this summer. They were selected from among more than 320 applicants, the largest number in the history of the event.
The 35 contestants range in age from 19 to 30. Yuanfan Yang, who won the 2015 CIPC Young Artists Competition, is the youngest contestant at age 19. Thirty-year-old Shen Lu and Ronaldo Rolim are the oldest. There are five women and 30 men, representing a total of 15 countries, including Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Georgia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.Read more
Free Childrens' Concert! CIPC Presents Carnival of the Animals!
Last summer CIPC’s ArtsConnect program worked with several community organizations to present two free community performances of Camille Saint-Saëns’ very child-friendly Carnival of the Animals. This spring the fun will continue at the Rainey Institute, a Cleveland institution that has been providing the community with education and programing in the performing and visual arts for more than 100 years.
Saint-Saëns composed Carnival of the Animals while on holiday in 1886. The piece is written for two pianos and an orchestra, and has fourteen movements that use sounds created by the instruments to mimic the sounds of animals. The composer viewed the work as a bit of fun, adamantly insisting that it not be performed in public until after his death in order to not detract from what he considered his more serious work. In 1922, just four months after his death, Carnival of the Animals was given its public debut in Paris. It has since become one of one of Saint-Saëns’ most enduring and popular works.Read more
PianoKids Comes to the Competition!
The 2016 Cleveland International Piano Competition and Festival will welcome a very new and different audience this summer as 50 young children participate in PianoKids at CIPC. This special, all-day version of the in-school PianoKids will involve several artists from the ArtsConnect program, including Andris Koh, Aniela Eddy, and Natsumi Shibagaki – the original PianoKids teaching team.
Aged between 8 and 12 years, the children are older than the pre-schoolers taught during the school year and able to enjoy several hours of a “day camp” experience. CIPC is working with the Boys & Girls Club of Cleveland to offer the program and help provide supervision. The event will be held at the Cleveland Museum of Art.Read more
Children Dance and Sing Their Way to Music Learning
Last fall CIPC ArtsConnect launched PianoKids, a music outreach program for pre-school children. The program was designed as a two part presentation: one to introduce the children to basic musical concepts, a second to build on what they learned. This month, Andris Koh (cello), Aniela Eddy (violin), and Natsumi Shibagaki (piano), will return to the schools – and several hundred very excited children – to present part two.
Using song, dance, simple instruments such as egg shakers, and fun learning aides like colorful scarves, the children will be taught the basics of pitch, scales, arpeggios, rhythm and meter. And this won’t be a sedentary classroom – they will be up on their feet, engaged with their teachers and each other, having fun and learning the concepts of music at the same time.Read more
CIPC Joins Steinway Prizewinner Concert Network
The Cleveland International Piano Competition has become the first U.S. competition to join the Steinway Prizewinner Concert Network, a collaboration of piano competitions, concert organizers, festivals, and radio stations that introduce select young pianists to international audiences.
As a result of this new partnership, the Mixon First Prize winner of the 2016 Cleveland International Piano Competition has been engaged for two performances. These include recitals at the famed Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels on January 25, 2017 and the Philharmonie Luxembourg on January 26, 2017.
“This is outstanding news for our future winners, who will now receive the immediate benefit of top-notch introductions to both European and American audiences,” said CIPC President and CEO Pierre van der Westhuizen. “It also speaks very highly of the talents of our past winners, whose amazing skills have helped to build the reputation of the CIPC around the world.”
Steinway & Sons founded the network in 2007 together with the Gewandhaus, Leipzig in order to help young, highly talented pianists gain access to top-ranked international venues and influential audiences. Since then, prizewinners from 20 competitions have performed 150 concerts in 25 different venues.
“As one of the most renowned American competitions, we are very happy that the CIPC is joining the network and becoming our first partner in the U.S.” said Gerrit Glaner, Head of the Concert and Artist Department at Steinway & Sons, Hamburg.
Photo by Roger Mastroianni.
CIPC Featured in International Piano
Check out this great article about the 2016 Competition from the March/April issue of International Piano magazine! And thanks to our friends at Rhinegold Publishing you can read the last two complete editions free of charge! Just follow this link to fill out the registration form. Once you have filled out the form, you will then receive an email stating that you have access to their website. Click on the link, scroll to the bottom of the page, and enter the promo code "CIPC16." http://www.rhinegold.co.uk/registration/
Bravo Piano Returns!
Mark your calendar now for the social event of the year! Bravo Piano, the spectacular black tie gala held at Severance Hall on the final night of the competition, will be back again – this year honoring the John P. Murphy Foundation and the Kulas Foundation, which have provided generous support for CIPC since it was founded in 1975. Join us for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, dinner, performances by two competition finalists with The Cleveland Orchestra, and the announcement of the 2016 Mixon First Prize winner! It all starts at 5:00 pm on Saturday, August 6.
Please contact Justine Endress, Director of Special Events and Stewardship, at 216-707-5397 for more information.
Learning Series Offers Insights into the Competition, the Music, and the Artists
One of the most popular events in 2013 was the Jury Roundtable Discussion – a standing-room only opportunity to learn everything about what the jury listens for during the competition, how they make their decisions, the “special something” that distinguishes a first prize winner, and more. We’re bringing it back for 2016, in the largest room the Cleveland Museum of Art has available, to accommodate as many people as possible! The event will be held at 10:30 am on Monday, August 1.
Additional programs include a workshop presented by Edna Golandsky, international renowned teacher and proponent of the Taubman Approach; a Competition Conversation with 2013 Mixon First Prize winner Stanislav Khristenko; and master classes taught by members of the jury.