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Calgary pianist Kevin Chen scored one other huge win within the classical music world, successful the highest prize on the Arthur Rubinstein Worldwide Piano Masters Competitors in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
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The victory comes 5 months after Chen, 18, gained the highest prize on the Concours de Geneve competitors in Geneva, Switzerland. In September 2021, he additionally turned the youngest musician in historical past to win the distinguished Frank Liszt Worldwide Competitors in Budapest.
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“It is wonderful,” says Marilyn Engle, Chen’s piano trainer for the previous six years and a professor on the College of Calgary.
“I believe he deserved to win and it is all the time a superb feeling. Typically you by no means know what is going on to occur as a result of it has very excessive requirements. Geneva was the identical factor, it’s totally excessive requirements. It is simply wonderful how he can focus. When he left Calgary he was a bit sick, he wasn’t feeling nicely. Step by step he acquired higher. Even when he did not really feel 100%, he gave 200 %. He is an excellent boy. Nonetheless solely 18 years outdated.”
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In Tel Aviv, the finals had been made up of three classes. Chen carried out Mozart’s Concerto No. 27 in B-Flat Main for the classical concerto, Brahms’ Trio in A Minor for Piano, Clarinet and Cello for the Chamber Music class and Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor for the nice concerto.
It was fully totally different materials than he performed in Geneva, which Engle says is “extraordinary”.
“It is numerous work to arrange nicely and the Geneva competitors ended at first of November,” says Engle. “We by no means had various months to get all these items prepared. He occurs to have an extremely massive repertoire. I do not assume anybody will ever consider how a lot music he really discovered. However you may study music, it is one other factor to arrange it to the extent you want for one thing like this. So how he did it … that is the phrase, phenomenon.”
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The Arthur Rubinstein Worldwide Competitors, named after the Polish-American composer and pianist, was established in 1974 and is introduced each three years. Based on the Jerusalem Publish, this yr’s version had 36 members, aged 18 to 32, from 18 international locations. One among this yr’s jury members was The Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska, who in 1974 got here third within the first competitors.
She shared the information of Chen’s win on social media.
Chen was successful competitions and gaining consideration since he was only a boy when he was awarded high prize on the Canadian Music Competitors within the seven-year-old class.
The CBC named him one of many “High 30 Sizzling Canadian Classical Musicians Underneath 30” in 2013 when he was 10. In 2019, he gained the e-Piano Junior Competitors, a world occasion held in Minneapolis for classical pianists 17 and beneath.
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Chatting with Chen after his win on Thursday, Engle mentioned the younger pianist was shocked and delighted.
“He actually needed to go,” says Engle. “He needed the expertise. He needed to see what it was like. He’s very courageous. He’ll go on the market and take a look at. I requested him ‘did you count on to win first place’ and he mentioned ‘No, I did not know what to anticipate.’
“I do not assume going there and successful was his purpose. It was concerning the expertise of taking part in and making music with totally different orchestras and totally different audiences. It was very convincing to him. To be sincere, I am simply in awe of his groundedness in all of this.”
evolmers@postmedia.com
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