Chopin Contest Winner Praised

San Diego music circles reacted with enthusiasm to the announcement that Coronado native Kevin Kenner, 27, won the top prize at the 12th International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland.

Donald Barra, music director of the San Diego State University Orchestra who performed with Kenner in San Diego last year, praised the pianist’s professionalism: “Performing the (Edvard) Grieg Piano Concerto with Kenner was a real collaboration. He was particularly interested in the psychological aspects of the concerto.

“A lot of musicians do it all intuitively, but he is a real thinking musician who works out why he does what he does,” Barra said.

Ilana Mysior, pianist and music professor at the University of San Diego, said she has followed Kenner’s musical development since he was very young: “Even as a child, he was never arrogant or conceited, and this humanity is reflected in his playing.”

In Poland, however, a controversy is brewing over the jury’s decision not to award a first prize in the competition, giving Kenner the second prize, ahead of two finalists from Japan, two from the Soviet Union and one each from Italy and France. The jury said Sunday that it refused to award a first prize this year because no performer fully captured the spirit of the Polish composer’s music.

It was the first time no first prize was awarded in the 63-year history of the competition.

Prof. Jan Ekier, head of the 21-member jury, said that, although the seven finalists showed technical brilliance, no outstanding personality emerged to take first prize.

“The Chopin competition . . . demands from the participants particular mastery of pianistic techniques. On the other hand, its essence is understanding the spirit of Chopin’s music,” he told the official Polish news agency PAP.

Organizers canceled a news conference at which they had been expected to give more details of the controversial verdict, reached early Saturday after hours of debate.

A Polish juror, Ryszard Bakst, said: “Kevin Kenner . . . is a talented Chopinist, but the victor must be a many-faceted pianist, and that cannot be said about the American.”

Kenner, a veteran competitor who first played in Poland in 1980, said he is not disappointed.

“I have no cause for disappointment because I consider participation in every competition to be a road to getting concert proposals, and this time that goal has been achieved,” PAP quoted him as saying.

In a gala concert after the results were announced, the audience greeted Kenner with thunderous applause and called him back for several encores.

He will have drawn comfort from the fact that renowned Soviet-born pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, the best-known member of the jury, only won second prize in the 1955 competition.

Kenner, who first studied in Baltimore, said that, after three weeks of grueling competition, he plans to take a break from Chopin.

“It will probably be some time before I return to Chopin, whose music I’ve had my fill of. In general, I will depart from a 19th-Century repertoire and become involved in the 20th-Century, especially Debussy,” he said.