08.03.2010 - musicalamerica.com
We have a winner!
Bamberg Concludes
By George Loomis
MusicalAmerica.com
March 8, 2010
http://www.musicalamerica.com/news/newsstory.cfm?archived=0&storyID=22342&categoryID=1
BAMBERG, Germany -- Six years ago the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra's new conducting competition received a spectacular launch when an emerging Venezuelan talent named Gustavo Dudamel came, saw and walked away with top honors. He made light work of the jury's task, which had only to ratify the name on everyone's lips. In the two competitions held since, including the one that concluded last week, decisions were less clear cut, thereby necessitating more thoroughgoing deliberation on matters such as youth versus experience, strengths and weaknesses of a contestant's musicality, and the many other intangibles essential for the person on the podium. In other words, welcome to the real world of music competitions.
Formally known as the International Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition, the event was a bit of a horse race this year. But the jury's top choice, announced last Thursday, nevertheless tallied with a sampling of views held by the press. Ainars Rubikis, a 31-year-old Latvian whose main forum to date has been the pit of the Latvian National Opera in Riga, took top honors and a €20,000 ($27,200) prize. He led a clean sweep of winners from former Soviet states, making a strong impression with the cogency of his musical ideas and his rapport with the orchestra.
Jonathan Nott, music director of the Bamberg Symphony, called Rubikis "an exceptional conductor who has barely had the chance to conduct outside his native land," adding that the competition's aim was not to uncover "the next conducting super star but rather to unearth someone who we believe will grow and contribute substantially to music making in the future."
Aziz Shokhakimov from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, who, at 21, was the youngest of the four semi-finalists, won the second prize award of €10,000 ($13, 600). His blazing talent was unmistakable but so was his need for more seasoning. Rubikis and Shokhakimov were the sole finalists, but the jury reached back to semifinalist Yordan Kamdzhalov, 29, from Bulgaria, and awarded him third honors with a prize of €5,000 ($6,800). The other contestant who placed among the four semi-finalists was Cornelius Heine from Germany, born in 1977.
A Mahler symphony is always the most meaty component of the competition's repertoire, which contestants are called upon both to rehearse and conduct. This year it was the Fourth Symphony. Other works included a selection of Mahler orchestral songs, Haydn's Symphony No. 104 in D (the "London"), Webern's Five Pieces for Orchestra and two contemporary works, Matthias Pintscher's "towards Osiris" (2005) and Jörg Widmann's "Con brio" (2008).
Much of the jury's work was completed before the competition was opened to the public at the start of the semi-finals on Wednesday. A surprise to many was the absence in these rounds of Alexander Prior, a 17-year-old from Britain, who has attracted considerable attention in his homeland and was recently appointed Assistant to the Guest Conductors of the Seattle Symphony.
Prior's absence from the semi-finals meant that the public never had the opportunity to sample his talent. Speculation abounded about just what prevented him from advancing, but Jonathan Mills, director of the Edinburgh International Festival and a member of the jury, perhaps summed up the matter best in an interview by simply acknowledging Prior's enormous talent and adding, "If a 17-year-old were to make it to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon, it would be a tremendous news story, even if he didn't advance from there."
From nearly 300 applicants who submitted video samples, 12 were invited to participate live following a grueling four-day weeding out process undertaken by Nott, Wolfgang Fink, general manager of the Bamberg Symphony, and conductor John Carewe at Nott's home in Lucerne, Switzerland. For the public rounds of the competition, which took place in the orchestra's modern and acoustically appealing concert hall, each contestant's image was projected on a screen, thereby enabling the audience to view him from the perspective of the orchestra; likewise, participants were miked so the audience could hear their remarks to the orchestra.
The semi-finals on Wednesday were led off by Heine, who demonstrated a good rehearsal technique and strong musicianship. But not all went smoothly in performance. For instance, he chose to rehearse the pizzicato passage near the end of the first movement of the Mahler, which leads into the final, elongated statement of the main theme. But when that passage arrived, the ensemble was faulty. In the same session, Kamdzhalov's performances came across as much more assured. He did especially nice work with details in the Minuet of the Haydn symphony, reflecting, as did the other contestants, the modern trend toward the more playful, inventive side of Haydn.
On the other hand, neither he nor Heine seemed sufficiently concerned with balances between singer and orchestra in the fourth movement of the Mahler, a situation that continued with the remaining contestants when the semi-finals resumed the next day. But Shokhakimov's polished reading of that movement had a dramatic charge, and the first movement was convincing as well, as he found much in the score to bring out. By comparison, Rubikis' performances, while well-structured and enhanced by the kind of clear, communicative conducting technique that orchestras always appreciate, seemed slightly bland.
The balance shifted in the finals. Here the three-part drill was to rehearse and perform whichever of the Pintscher or Widmann compositions the contestant had not conducted in a previous round, to rehearse the scherzo of the Mahler and to perform that work’s slow movement. Rubikis demonstrated the more relaxed and seemingly more effective rehearsal style. Yet both conductors were convincing in the new works, each of which proved to be a brief but thorny exercise in modernism.
The slow movement of the Mahler was the most telling. Shokhakimov's highly expressive performance dug deep into the fabric of the music but there were moments when it threatened to sink from its own weight. Rubikis showed a stronger sense of overall shape, and by the end it was clear, at least to this observer, that his more lucid reading would carry the day.
Three years ago the competition chose no first-place winner. The top prize went to Shi-Yeon Sung of South Korea, who recently completed two years as assistant conductor under James Levine of the Boston Symphony and is currently associate conductor of the Seoul Philharmonic. She makes her debut at Stockholm's Royal Opera this season conducting Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice."
Two Americans were among the 12 participants, Elizabeth Askren, a native of New York City, and Scott Robert Seaton, originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The Bamberg competition was established by British conductor Jonathan Nott, now in his 11th year as Bamberg Symphony’s music director. From the start, the orchestra has allied itself with the composer's granddaughter Marina Mahler, who is an honorary jury member and patron of the competition.
In addition to Nott, Wolfgang Fink, John Carewe, Matthias Pintscher and Jonathan Mills, the jury also included Herbert Blomstedt, honorary life conductor of the Bamberg Symphony; Jan Nast, managing director of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden; and Luuk Godwaldt, a member of the Bamberg Symphony charged with representing the orchestra's views as well as his own. Christine Landshamer, the engaging soprano soloist in the Mahler Fourth, was also said to have been afforded an opportunity to express her thoughts.