American-born Nicholas Angelich, of France, was named the winner of the 11th Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition Saturday, following concerto-round performances in which five of the six finalists played Rachmaninoff.
Four of them performed the Piano Concerto No. 2, with Jorge Mester conducting the Utah Symphony. But none was the equal of Angelich's Rachmaninoff Third, a breathtaking amalgam of clarity, songfulness and excitement. So much so that the Abravanel Hall audience roared its approval before the final notes had died away.Besides the gold medal placed around his neck Saturday, the 23-year-old Angelich will receive $8,000 in cash, a Steinway Model M grand piano, a recording session and recital and concert engagements around the world.
He was also the winner of the $1,000 audience prize - no surprise in view of the response accorded his Rachmaninoff Third.
Second prize, of $7,000, went to Russia's Dmitrij Teterin, 22, currently living in Canada. The $5,000 third prize went to Italy's Filippo Gamba, 25, fourth-prize winner in last year's Leeds International Piano Competition.
Fourth prize, of $2,000, went to 27-year-old George Vatchnadze, of Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, with the $3,000 fifth prize and $2,000 sixth prize awarded to Italy's Pasquale Iannone and Giampaolo Stuani, respectively.
In addition, a cash award of $500 was presented to each of the four semifinalists who did not make the finals - Thomas Grubmueller, Oleg Marshev, Anthony Padilla and Alexander Vershinin.
In a contest that truly lived up to its name, Angelich was as "international" a competitor as any. A native of Cincinnati, he entered the Paris Conservatory at age 13 and, though he has retained his American citizenship, speaks English with a slight French accent.
A former student of such celebrated teachers as Aldo Ciccolini, Michel Beroff and Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, his playing in this year's Bachauer impressed from the very first round, by way of a stunning traversal of Brahms' Paganini Variations, Book 1, and maintained that level to the end.
(Utahns will have another chance to hear him Monday, June 27, at Orem's SCERA Shell, where he will perform at 8:15 p.m.)
Gamba was the only one of the other finalists to solo in something other than the Rachmaninoff Second - in his case Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, its pulsing finale coming on the heels of perhaps the slowest performance of the first two movements this hall has ever witnessed.
Friday he was preceded by Stuani, who played beautifully but whose small-scale Rachmaninoff Second was frequently overpowered by the orchestra.
That was no problem for Vatchnadze, whose Slavic power carried the day. Teterin and Iannone, however, were undermined by a surprising number of mistakes Saturday. Even so, Teterin's warmth and lyricism were hard to resist, and his performance of this concerto was probably the best matched with the orchestra.