This week has seen another of the Seattle Symphony’s new ventures under music director Ludovic Morlot, this one intended to encourage young pianists to study in depth and show their skills in French and American music, particularly works less often heard on the concert stage. The Seattle Symphony Piano Competition also filled the need to draw interested audiences in to hear competitors and to introduce them to music they might not otherwise feel compelled to come and hear.
Out of several dozen applicants, nine were chosen for the semi-finals last week. One dropped out a while back and one last weekend, so there were seven on Tuesday, the opening recital round.
Each played a Ravel piece, a work expressly commissioned for the competition by Portland composer Kenji Bunch, and a personally chosen piece. Out of these players, the jury chose five to return for the first concerto round Wednesday. Each had to prepare a French and an American concerto and perform with an accompanist in a piano reduction of the orchestral score. (Christina Siemens and Li-Tan Hsu gave remarkable performances of the orchestra reductions, each playing the same work with different competitors and their differing interpretations.) The contestants could choose which concerto to play in its entirety and the jury then directed them to play one or two movements of the other.
All in their early 20s, the three chosen for the final–Kevin Ahfat from Toronto, Kenny Broberg from Minneapolis, and Vijay Venkatesh from Laguna Niguel, California–performed their chosen concerto with the Seattle Symphony in Benaroya Hall Friday night, after which the winners were announced as well as an audience favorite.
The whole procedure has been absorbing to watch and hear, and the caliber of the players very high, with the players’ interpretations of the jazz-inspired Bunch work, Premonitions, fascinating in their variety. For this listener, it was Broberg who best found coherence in the work and seemed to comprehend it from the inside.
Venkatesh opened the concert Friday with Saint-Saens’ Concerto No. 2, in a performance with the orchestra which demonstrated profound musicianship as well as an unobtrusive technique which emphasized the atmosphere of the work. There was never a careless note in his performance, every detail shaped with thought for its place in the work and judicious use of pedal so that clarity came through in beautiful legato passages, full of tenderness and lucidity. At the same time the last movement felt light and easy despite lightning speed. This listener wouldn’t hesitate to go and hear him again, thanks to this moving, insightful performance.
Next came Ahfat with Samuel Barber’s Concerto, Op. 38, less frequently heard perhaps because it is less instantly appealing at first hearing, and technically tricky, though it needs less nuance in its presentation than the Saint-Saens. Ahfat seemed totally comfortable with it, sailing through the ferocious speed and thunderous notes of the first and third movement, and creating fine phrasing for the slower more contemplative second. His playing approach was decisive, appropriate for the work, though there seemed a few muddy moments.
Last came Broberg in Gershwin’s Concerto in F, always a work instantly pleasing to the audience with its sense of fun which Broberg displayed with ease. This is more a concerto for orchestra with piano than a true piano concerto, thanks to the chances given for orchestra soloists to shine also, including principal trumpet, flute and violin. There were times where he didn’t quite seem to feel the connections, the flow between sections where his entry felt a bit jarring, but overall it was clear he has a real flair for the jazzy side American music.
Morlot, conducting the orchestra, stayed closely with all the young soloists, seeming to watch over them to give them the best support he and the orchestra could.
He was on the jury, as was principal cellist Efe Baltacigil. It is surely unusual for jury members to be playing or conducting in a competition final and it must have given them both a chance to see from the inside how these pianists could work with orchestra. The other jury members included Simon Woods, president and CEO of the SSO, Samantha Pollack of Washington (D.C.) Performing Arts, Monica J. Felkel of Young Concert Artists, James Egelhofer of First Chair Promotion and the jury chair, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet who will also be artist–in-residence at the SSO this season.
Woods announced the jury’s choice of winners after Friday’s performance. First prize, which includes a concert with the SSO this season and a cameo appearance at the SSO’s Opening Gala tonight (Saturday), went to Ahfat, with Broberg and Venkatesh tied for second. All three receive a financial prize and career help. Broberg, with the Gershwin, won the audience prize.
All in all, an exciting week.
