The 2002 Winter Olympics may be over, but Salt Lake City will shortly be hosting another event of international importance — the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition.
Contestants have spent a lifetime in preparation and undergone rigorous competition simply to have a chance to throw their hat in the ring in Salt Lake City this year.
The time has almost come for the 32 chosen competitors to meet head-to-head and show what they're made of.
"The whole goal of the Bachauer is to keep the beauty and the excellence imported and exported," said founder and artistic director Paul Pollei. "We can bring these wonderful young artists to Utah . . . and then we love to turn them around and send them right back out and say, 'Look, these are the best of the world!' "
The contestants were chosen from 520 applicants, ages 19-32, through a process of auditions held throughout the world. Pollei set up juries of three to five musicians in 16 cities. He attended most of the auditions.
"There were 40 countries represented," he said. "(Auditions were held in) Jerusalem, Brazil, Hamburg, Paris, Rome and Helsinki. In America, we did Chicago, New York and Salt Lake. In Asia, we went to six cities — Beijing, Shenzhen, Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong and Tokyo. It's a huge adventure."
The chosen few come from countries as far away as Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka and Nigeria, with a total of 22 countries represented in the final selection.
This year they're not eliminating competitors until the final round of competition, and as a result, the response to the call for auditions was tremendous.
In his experience of watching international piano competitions over the years, Pollei repeatedly saw that "great pianists were going 10,000 miles and spending $10,000, and playing for 10 minutes and then getting eliminated. The first thing that happened was tears and sadness," he said. "And I thought, there has to be a way to fix that, there has to be a better way.
"Something didn't feel right to me. So I studied this and finally I said, 'We're going to change it!' "
So this year, each competitor will get to perform a total of 95 minutes of music over the course of three rounds. Six finalists will then be chosen from the entire pool for the final round. Pollei said that this shift in policy has elicited a lot of international attention — not the least from competitors themselves, who came out in record numbers to audition.
According to a survey of the World Federation of International Music Competitions, this year's number of applicants is more than any music competition has ever received for a single competition.
Ninety-eight percent of the applicants said the reason they entered the Bachauer was the expanded playing time, according to Pollei.
"We didn't know what we had done to ourselves," Pollei said. "We're used to receiving about 200 applicants and we pick from there. This time, we announced our auditions around the world and we had 520 applicants. . . .
"In the New York auditions, we had an unbelievable response. Usually I reserve one day at Steinway Hall on 57th Street. When we got the numbers (this year), we had 103 people to audition, so I called them up and said, 'Help! I need five days instead on one!' They said, 'Sorry, we're all booked up.' So I called Juilliard and said, 'Please . . . let us audition.' They were so nice to us. We were there for five days, from 8 a.m. to 6 or 7 p.m. every day, auditioning straight through."
The competition will be June 18-29.
Preliminary rounds, running June 18-27, will be at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, and the final round will be at Abravanel Hall on Friday, June 28, and Saturday, June 29. The winners will be announced after the final round is completed, with an awards ceremony following. Tickets may be purchased through ArtTix at (801) 355-2787, online at www.arttix.org, or through the Gina Bachauer office at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. 300 South.
E-mail: rcline@desnews.com