Colburn School graduate reaches the finals of the International Tchaikovsky Competition

Nigel Armstrong, a 21-year-old recent graduate of L.A.’s Colburn School, has made the violin finals in classical music’s equivalent of the Olympics — the quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia that’s best known stateside for Van Cliburn’s triumph during the inaugural running in 1958.

Americans celebrated it as a victory over the Soviets on their own turf during those Cold War days, and Cliburn, a pianist from Texas, returned to a ticker tape parade on Manhattan’s Broadway and lionization on the cover of Time magazine.

The competition is for pianists, cellists and violinists ages 16 to 30 and singers ages 19 to 32.

FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this story said Nigel Armstrong is a 22-year-old senior at the Colburn School. He is a 21-year-old who graduated in May. Also, the conversions from euros to dollars in reporting prize money were incorrect. The winners in each category receive about $28,600, not $14,000, the 30,000 euro prize for best performer overall is equivalent to about $43,000, and a 2,000 euro prize Armstrong has won is worth about $2,900, not $1,400. Also, the earlier version said that Armstrong could become the first American violinist to win the Tchaikovsky Competition. American Elmar Oliveira shared first prize in 1978 with Ilya Grubert of the USSR.

If Armstrong, who hails from Sonoma, prevails in a final round Monday through Wednesday in St. Petersburg — performing violin concertos by Tchaikovsky (mandatory) and Prokofiev (his choice) — he might not get a ticker tape parade, but he could be in line for a maximum cash award of about $43,000 (30,000 euros). The winner in each category gets about $28,600, and the one judged the competition’s top overall performer gets a 50% bonus. Victory also includes the services of talent agencies that will try to book the winners on the international concert circuit. He could be the first American violinist to win the competition outright (in 1978 American Elmar Olveira and Ilya Grubert of the USSR shared first prize).

The 12-judge violin panel includes five members from Russia, four other Europeans, including German violin star Anne-Sophie Mutter, two Americans (composer John Corigliano and Andres Cardenes, former longtime concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony), and Canadian Barry Shiffman, formerly of the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

Armstrong already has won a special prize of 2,000 euros (about $2,900), awarded after the semifinals to the violinist judged to have given the best rendition of “Stomp,” a new solo piece by Corigliano that the Tchaikovsky Competition had commissioned.

To get to the finals, Armstrong also had to impress judges while performing Mozart’s third violin concerto with the Chamber Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, whose artistic director, Valery Gergiev, is the competition’s chairman. Armstrong’s bio on the competition website says he has placed second or third in three previous international competitions, and that he’s proud of his second-prize finish in the 2000 Coverdale (California) Old Time Fiddle Contest’s waltz division.

From 24 contestants when the violin competition began, the field has been winnowed after three performance rounds to a final five that also includes a Russian, 25-year-old Sergey Dogadin; an Israeli, Itamar Zorman, 25, the lone woman; Jehye Lee, 25, of South Korea; and a second American, Eric Silberger, 22, who is enrolled in a joint studies program at Columbia University and the Juilliard School. Fabiola Kim, 20, of Juilliard School; Tessa Lark, 22, of New England Conservatory of Music; and Nancy Zhou, 18, of San Antonio began the violin competition, with Zhou making it to the second round. Word that Armstrong had made the finals arrived just in time for Friday’s marking of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Colburn School’s prime mover, amateur violist and Southern California business magnate Richard Colburn, who died in 2004. School spokesman Daniel Bee said that Gergiev regards Colburn as a key supporter and was throwing a party in St. Petersburg to celebrate his centennial.

FOR THE RECORD:
Violin competition: In the June 29 Calendar section, an article about a Colburn School graduate competing in the International Tchaikovsky Competition said that Itamar Zorman of Israel was the lone woman in the finals. Zorman is a man. Jehye Lee of South Korea is the sole woman finalist. —

Previous American Tchaikovsky Competition winners are Cliburn, cellist Nathaniel Rosen (1978), and singers Jane Marsh (1966) and Deborah Voigt (1990). The Tchaikovsky Competition’s website also credits Korean-born singer Hans Choi as an American winner; he was based in New York when he won in 1990 for male voice.

Cliburn, incidentally, is honorary chairman of this year’s piano competition — the first time he has attended the Tchaikovsky Competition since he won it.

mike.boehm@latimes.com