Medal Some

The Pacific Symphony scored a coup this summer in lining up all three 1997 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition winners to play as soloists with its orchestra at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

The first of the three, bronze medalist Aviram Reichert, 26, plays Mozart’s Concerto No. 23 this Saturday with guest conductor Lucinda Carver, director of the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra.

Even before his Cliburn award, Reichert had been busy touring; the pace has only picked up. He had just come off a three-week tour of Japan when reached by telephone at his home outside Tel Aviv, Israel.

Reichert said he wasn’t one of those kids who always dreamed about being a pianist. His mother had heard Daniel Barenboim playing on a radio broadcast and decided her 5-year-old should follow in Barenboim’s footsteps.

“I was doomed, I guess,” he said. “I didn’t think of it as a career at all. Everything came naturally. It was pretty easy at the beginning,” he said, recalling he still had time to play ball with other kids.

The turning point came at age 18 when he had to go into the Israeli army. After passing exams in two fields--music and military--he faced the choice of becoming either a fighter pilot or a musician, an option in the Israeli military: “I chose music.”

Being a musician in the army meant freedom to practice but also an obligation to try interesting other soldiers in classical music.

“That wasn’t an easy job,” he said. “Mostly, though, I was very happy to have an opportunity to continue my career. Many of my friends who didn’t pass the exam had to stop all musical activities for those years. At that age, it’s a death sentence for your career.”

Riechert was 19 when he won his first big prize--fourth place at the Taipei International Piano Competition. “More important than the prize, it gave me the confidence to pursue this career,” he said.

He went on to win prizes in Japan (1995) and Korea and France (both in 1997).

Some doom.

“Competitions are a necessary evil,” Reichert said. “You have to have them because you have so many talented--extremely talented--young pianists. But I don’t think any competition matches the level of the Cliburn, and there is no competition experience like the Cliburn.”

Getting to the grueling Texas competition is an effort; then an aspiring competitor must perform a public concert. Jury members are flown in to listen.

“You are being judged as you would be examined in life,” Reichert said.

He went to perform in Milan, the closest point he could, and played Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30 and Schubert’s A-minor sonata, two difficult works already signaling his interest in those composers.

“A few months later, I was invited to compete in Fort Worth.”

The Cliburn allowed the competitors to choose whatever repertory they wanted in addition to one mandatory American work--William Bolcom’s “Nine Bagatelles,” composed for the occasion. It also required them to play chamber music with the Tokyo String Quartet.

“After three weeks of events, you begin to get tired,” Reichert said. “And then the final stage is so tense. Maybe I wasn’t at my best. We’re not talking about rehearsing too. You do other things offstage.”

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Reichert had returned to Israel when he saw the 90-minute documentary on the competition, “Playing With Fire,” which aired in October on PBS.

“The documentary shows [only] highlights,” he said. “What you see is the best--we’re talking small portions--a few seconds--of everyone’s best playing, pure genius in a way. Everything looks fantastic, so you can wonder, ‘How come this person didn’t come up second?’ But you also talking about an incredibly long process. You have to be solid and steady and show stamina and strength all through it.”

This past year, Riechert has played about 70 concerts. “It’s easier to imagine my schedule by noting that I’ve gone to the United States seven times this past year, plus many other countries in between. I just came back from Japan 20 hours ago. And I had tours in Germany and Europe.”

To handle the pressure, Reichert regards himself as an athlete and maintains an athlete’s regimen.

“It’s a very physical job,” he said. “You have to take care of yourself. A 100-meter runner wouldn’t immediately go into a sprint. If you’re doing to do a sonata by Liszt, it takes some time for the system to warm up, especially if you want to avoid tension later on.”

Balancing a career and a personal life has been tough.

“Clearly, the choice is made way back,” he said. “It’s a sacrifice, always. Always when you want to go to the top, you have to sacrifice something. I have confidence and faith that I can combine a personal life with a career in a way that will not disturb either of them--in the future, not now. In the near future, when I will really have some kind of security and status.”

No second thoughts about his chosen path, though. “Really, you hope nobody gets to be a Cliburn medalist and then wonders if that’s ‘really what I want to do,’ ” he said.

For his Orange County concert, Reichert chose a Mozart concerto, not exactly a flashy debut.

“It’s probably the best music in the world!” he said. “I have no other way to describe it. This concerto is one of the masterpieces. You cannot always play to be brilliant. If you play just Liszt, just Rachmaninoff, you lose a lot.

“I actually identify much more with the classical period than the Romantic--with Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart,” he said. “Don’t make me chose between Beethoven and Schubert.”

* Aviram Reichert will be the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 with the Pacific Symphony led by Lucinda Carver on Saturday at 8 p.m. at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive. The program will include Mozart’s Symphony No. 16 and music by Falla and Bizet. $13-$54. $7 to park. (714) 755-5799.