Violinist Makarski in Winner’s Circle

The recent winner of a major international competition, with prizes valued at $75,000, Michelle Makarski seems to be taking it all in stride.

On the phone from her home in Santa Barbara, the 34-year-old, Detroit-born violinist, who two weeks ago won top honors in the 1989 Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition, says she is happy it took this long for her to win “such a big prize,” because she is more musically equipped to handle it now than 10 years ago.

“I’m better prepared now than then, my values more intact,” said Makarski, who lives and teaches privately in the Channel City with her husband, violinist/violist Ronald Copes. He plays in the Los Angeles Piano Quartet and teaches at UC Santa Barbara. Both musicians have been associated with Henri Temianka’s California Chamber Virtuosi.

“No, I have no mentors,” Makarski, says, matter of factly, mentioning that her last teacher was Paul Makanowitzky, with whom she studied at the University of Michigan. Makarski and Copes met in Makanowitzky’s class.

“My husband and I are mentors to each other.”

Despite the name of the contest, Makarski says, winning it “does not mean that I am a new-music specialist. It means only that I am one of the few violinists--all of whom play the standard repertory--also willing to consider American music as part of my playing list.”

Long friendly to music by living composers, Makarski nevertheless had a lot of work to do when she decided to enter the competition, a year ago.

“I got the prospectus in September of 1988, and started choosing what I wanted to do. It took me at least until February to gather all the music together--that’s not so easy from Santa Barbara, you know. We have a wonderful library, but one has to have one’s own scores.”

And it was not inexpensive to participate in this international competition. “Since the West Coast preliminaries were canceled, I had to fly myself and my pianist, Brent McMunn, to Chicago for those.”

When she and McMunn went to New York for the semi-finals, Makarski took the equivalent of three full programs: a solo sonata by Bach; a Beethoven sonata; “more than a full recital of American music” by Stephen Hartke, John Cage, Ellen Zwilich, Richard Wernick and John Corigliano and works for violin and orchestra by William Schuman and Wallingford Riegger.

The winnings include: $10,000 in cash; a “career promotion” fund which includes $20,000; concert engagements, including a concerto performance in Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony, in February, 1990; a Carnegie Hall debut recital, scheduled for February, 1991; a limited recording contract with New World Records, and complete sets of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the New Grove Dictionary of American Music.

Victor Schultz, 30, of Winnipeg, took the second prize ($5,000 and a New York recital). The third prize went to David Wolf, 22, a native of France now living in Bloomington, Ind.

KORNGOLD: The puzzle is solved. After reviewing the first local performance in many years of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Suite for Piano, Two Violins and Cello, Opus 23, two weeks ago, this critic received confirmation that an earlier one had actually taken place. It was given by members of the Roth String Quartet and the one-armed pianist, Paul Wittgenstein, for whom the work was written. And it took place on a subscription event of Coleman Concerts in Pasadena, in November, 1944. Oddly enough, according to the printed program sent by former Coleman president Phyllis Hudson, only three of the work’s five movements were presented at that performance.

BRIEFLY: Despite the effects of Hurricane Hugo, the 1990 Spoleto Festival, USA, planned in Charleston, S.C., next May and June, will go on as scheduled, says Major Joseph P. Riley Jr. Mayor Riley and other city officials assert that Charleston will be ready to receive the usual influx of thousands of festival-goers for the 1990 festival, May 25-June 10. The city’s 300-year old historic district, site of most of the festival’s 100-plus performances, has remained “largely intact,” the mayor says. . . . Patrick J. Flynn, former general manager of the Opera Guild of Fort Lauderdale, has been appointed managing director of Opera Pacific in Costa Mesa. Flynn will report to general director David DiChiera; he will be responsible for overseeing the company’s day-to-day workings, including market, ticket services, development and financial planning.