Cliburn Winner Targeted His Gold Medal

When Aleksei Sultanov, the gold medalist of the eighth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, plays his first post-win recital June 22 at Ambassador Auditorium, the Soviet pianist begins a busy year that includes a debut recital at Carnegie Hall, a recording contract and other concert and recital appearances.

“In this competition I wanted to get first prize or nothing,” Sultanov said through an interpreter after his win Sunday night.

Asked what he performed best, Sultanov said: “It’s difficult to say. It’s difficult to even remember what I did.”

The career of the 19-year-old Sultanov, a second-year student at the Moscow State Conservatory, and the son of two violinists, has been launched. And that’s what piano competitions are designed to do. But finding a winner to anoint can be a brutal process.

“Competitions are blood and guts, though this one has a good way of covering it up with lace,” said Kevin Kenner, 26, a native of Coronado and one of the semifinalists.

“(The Cliburn) really is more humane. Though it’s a paradox that you can take something like a competition and make it humane.

“In competitions,” Kenner said, “the tough pianists succeed. As my teacher says, successful competition pianists must have a soul filled with art and their hide must be that of a rhinoceros.

“I’m happy I was here and satisfied with my performances. If I can gain the opportunity to perform on a continuing basis, that’s what I want to get out of competitions. I don’t want to do any more competitions than I have to.”

Although he did not advance to the finals, Kenner won the competition’s prize for the highest-ranked U.S. pianist and split the jury’s discretionary award and the award for best chamber music performance. In all, he took home more than $6,000. (The winner got about $200,000.)

Kenner was one of 38 pianists who began the preliminary phase of the Cliburn Competition two weeks ago (narrowed from a field of 193 who auditioned on videotape). Each competitor played two half-hour recitals, choosing from a list of required pieces.

Twelve of the 38 were chosen for the semifinals, which required playing a one-hour recital and a piano quintet with the Tokyo String Quartet. Six finalists were chosen from the 12, and each of the finalists played two concertos with the Ft. Worth Symphony.

Sultanov, the youngest competitor and the audiences’ favorite, won the gold. Jose Carlos Cocarelli, a 30-year-old Brazilian, took the silver. And Benedetto Lupo, a 26-year-old Italian, the bronze. Russian pianist Alexander Shtarkman placed fourth, Tian Ying of the People’s Republic of China placed fifth and Elisso Bolkvadze, also of the Soviet Union, placed sixth.

Close observers of the piano competition circuit say only Radu Lupu, who won in 1966, fulfilled the promise of the Van Cliburn Competition. However, several finalists such as Nicolai Petrov, Alexander Toradze, Minoru Nojima and Jeffrey Kahane have gone on to earn worldwide acclaim.

The 12-member jury was composed of pianists (including former Cliburn gold medalists Cristina Ortiz and Ralph Votapek), piano teachers, and a recording company executive.

The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is named after the Texas pianist who in 1958 became the first American to win the Tchaikovsky Competition. The competition is open only to pianists younger than 31, so for the first time, none of the competitors at this competition had been born at the time of Cliburn’s triumph in Moscow.

The competition is held here every four years, and this is the first time since 1977 that contestants from the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China have attended.

In July, Kenner will compete at the William Kapell Competition at the University of Maryland. Then in August he will go to the Hochschule fur Musik in Hanover, West Germany, for a year of study, which he says he is looking forward to.

“I don’t want to be a star,” he said. “My personality is not such that I would like that. And there’s much more to making great music than being a star.”

The only other California competitor, Angela Cholakyan, did not advance to the semifinals and was not available for comment. Cholakyan, 30, formerly of Los Angeles, is an Armenian pianist now awaiting her U.S. citizenship.