It happens every four years in Fort Worth: one of the world’s highest-visibility classical music competitions, followed by millions around the world via internet livestreams. Inaugurated in 1962, open to pianists 18 to 30, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was held again May 21 through June 7.
The three medalists, announced at a final awards ceremony, were Aristo Sham (gold) of Hong Kong, Vitaly Starikov (silver) of Israel/Russia, and Evren Ozel (bronze) of the United States. A number of additional awards were also presented.
Cash prizes up to $100,000, plus three years of concert management and bookings for top winners, attracted 340 applicants for the 2025 competition. In advance video and live auditions, 30 pianists were selected for the actual competition, although two dropped out beforehand.
Competitors were narrowed to 18, then 12, then six in preliminary, quarterfinal and semifinal rounds. In addition to solo recitals in each of those rounds, each of the semifinalists performed a Mozart piano concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, led by guest conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto.
The six finalists then each played two additional non-Mozart concertos with the FWSO, led by Marin Alsop.
Herewith, a look back at this year’s Cliburn — the eighth I’ve covered, in whole or in part, since 1997.
A caveat first. What I’ve written about the performances, and what I’m writing here, is based on hearing only the semifinal and final rounds. And because a Dallas Symphony Orchestra performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony conflicted with one of the semifinal’s concerto nights, I figured I could cover only the semifinal recitals. To avoid a nerve-wracking I-30 drive from Fort Worth to Dallas, I listened to that afternoon’s recitals on the livestream.
I did hear a bit of the final movement of Evren Ozel’s elegant Mozart Concerto No. 25 on the livestream, and online I sampled a few recitals in the preliminary and quarterfinal rounds — but not systematically enough to comment.
As with the rest of us, even the greatest musicians aren’t “on” 100% of the time, and none was in this year’s Cliburn. While the official line is that the Cliburn represents real-world challenges faced by concertizing pianists, it’s unlikely that any pianist on the concert circuit would play three completely different solo recital programs and three different piano concertos within the span of two and a half weeks.
The Cliburn is as much a test of endurance, in superhuman circumstances, as of musicianship. Whether that’s the best way to pick musicians of enduring value will be debated as long as competitions hold sway in the classical music world.
In the struggle to get attention and start a career, though, competitions can be useful showcases. Sometimes musicians who don’t even advance to the finals develop higher-visibility careers than top winners.
As with critics, this one definitely included, competition jurors pick “winners” on the basis of their personal experiences and tastes. The larger the jury — this year’s Cliburn had nine distinguished pianists, chaired by Paul Lewis — the greater the danger of coalescing on rock-solid technique and uncontroversial interpretations. Ultimately, competition juries are no better than the best of us at predicting careers.
Compliments, though, to the Cliburn for running a very professional operation top to bottom. The livestream rendered performances in excellent audio and video quality, although commentary on the livestreams was sometimes eye-rollingly effusive — “presenting the greatest pianists.” But introductory video vignettes on the individual contestants were charming.
At a time of increasing xenophobia, the Cliburn was once again a reminder of how international the classical music world has become. Representing 16 different countries, most of the competitors had studied in two or more different countries. All but one spoke English.
The FWSO deserves it own gold medal. Having to play 10 different concertos in one week, including two rarely programmed, with less than ideal rehearsal times, with young pianists of varied experience, was a heroic challenge. And that was after playing seven different Mozart concertos for 12 semifinalists the week before.
I can’t speak of the Mozart performances, but with alert, incisive direction from Alsop the orchestra played the larger-scale concertos with security and flexibility hardly imaginable a few years ago. Even out-of-town critics were impressed.
The medalists
In the end, I thought Sham thoroughly deserved the first-prize gold medal, worth $100,000, plus career management and other amenities. As the first semifinalist to play in Bass Performance Hall, after the first two rounds in TCU’s more intimate Van Cliburn Concert Hall, he didn’t immediately adjust tempos and pedaling to the much “wetter” acoustic of the larger room. But there was much to ire in nuances of touch and voicings.
In the final round, Sham was the most consistently authoritative. His Mendelssohn G minor Concerto was a marvel of deft characterization and sophisticated interaction with the orchestra. His Brahms Second Concerto had a nobility rarely heard from any pianist. For me, those two concertos alone won him the gold. He’s a pianist I look forward to hearing again.
Silver medalist Starikov played poetically in his semifinal round Chopin Op. 25 Etudes and he managed the tensions of Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata with impressive strategy. In the final round, though, his Schumann concerto was pushed and pulled around too much.
His choice of the Bartók Second Concerto, a significant challenge for an orchestra even with considerably more rehearsal time than available at a competition, struck me as unwise. Pianist friends were wowed by Starikov’s finely machined playing. But in a piece demanding click-track coordination with the orchestra, for all the careful attentions of Alsop and the FWSO, it could have used another run-through. Anyone who follows music competitions will sometimes wonder at juries’ decisions; neither of Starikov’s concerto performances convinced me.
Ozel, the bronze medalist, is a well-equipped and communicative pianist, although I had mixed feelings about his Cliburn performances. He beautifully managed tints, textures and timings in Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit. In Beethoven’s Op. 111 Sonata, apart from what struck me as too deliberate a start to what’s supposed to be a songlike second movement, he keenly projected the musical rhetoric.
His deftly inflected Beethoven Fourth Concerto was one of the final round’s highlights, but in the first movement of the Tchaikovsky First Concerto I kept wanting more energy, more momentum. Although listeners at home said balances were fine — the livestream definitely foregrounded the piano, with the orchestra ever so slightly recessed — in the hall Ozel was sometimes too prominent when the orchestra had more important material.
The other finalists
Of the other finalists, Philipp Lynov, another superbly equipped pianist, seemed gold medal material until a Prokofiev Second Concerto that sounded more desperate than exciting, with too much banging.
Carter Johnson had much going for him, and he had a real following among the audience. But his choice of the rarely played Ravel Left Hand Concerto, not the greatest pianistic showpiece and tricky to put together with the orchestra, didn’t advance his cause. His Prokofiev Second Concerto, while technically secure, sounded as if it needed to be lived with a little longer.
At 22 the youngest of the finalists, Angel Stanislav Wang also had a real connection with the audience. After arresting performances in the semifinal round, though, neither his Beethoven Fourth Concerto nor Rachmaninoff Third felt fully thought out, and there was too much banging in the latter. (Rachmaninoff should never be banged.) There’s real potential here; I’d like to hear him in another couple years.
The jury’s choice of the six finalists made sense on the basis of what I’d heard in the semifinal recitals. I thought Elia Cecino’s characterful and elegant semifinal recital might win him a place in the finals. But the jury, having heard three performances I didn’t, decided otherwise.
