SOVIET, ITALIAN SHARE MOSCOW CELLO PRIZE

A Soviet and an Italian shared first prize Thursday in the cello section of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, with a Soviet and a Finn taking second place and two Americans the third prize.

Sara Sant’Ambrogio, 24, of New York, and John Sharp, 26, of Cincinnati, Ohio, divided the bronze-medal prize of 1,500 rubles ($2,000). A third American cellist, Bion Yu-Tsing Tsang, 19, a Harvard University student from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., took fifth place.

Soviet cellist Kirill Rodin and Italian Mario Brunello split the gold prize of 2,500 rubles ($3,500). Second place silver medals went to Martti Ruosi of Finland and Suren Bagratuni of the Soviet Union.

Johanna Picker of Austria, a student of Eleonore Schoenfeld at USC, split fourth prize with a Czechoslovak cellist, and Satoshi Akitsu of Japan shared seventh place with an East German.

Sant’Ambrogio trained at Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia, and the Juilliard School in New York, where she is currently based.

She said she “liked playing for the Muscovites. . . . They really respond immediately, which is nice.” She recommended that any American musician take part in the prestigious Tchaikovsky competition, but added, “I’d say bring a suitcase full of food.”

Sant’Ambrogio said she lost 12 pounds since she arrived in Moscow for the competition.

The cellists played Tchaikovsky’s Variation on a Rococo Theme and Khrennikov’s Concerto No. 2 in the final round.

Other finalists included David Starkweather, Judy Stone, Diane Chaplin, Lawrence Figg, Johann Paetsch, Michelle Djokic and Rafael Figueroa of the United States, and Claudio Jaffe from Brazil.