JAVS Summer 2014

The Competition (Quarterfinals and Semifinals)

PIVC competitiors sign up at the start of the competition (photo courtesy of the author) The competition kicked off Sunday, June 8 with a welcome by PIVC Director Nokuthula Ngwenyama and drawing of lots by competitors, followed by a reception. Quarterfinalist rounds took up most of the days Monday and Tuesday with each violist performing the first movement of a major concerto (Bartók, Walton, or Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher ) on Monday followed by solo Bach and a Primrose transcription on Tuesday. The technical and artistic level of each competitor was exceptionally high, with each filling Zipper Hall with a large, robust sound. For me, a few standouts during these rounds were concerto performances by Born Lau, Cong Wu, and Matthew Cohen (who gave an immensely colorful reading of Bartók’s concerto) and Yifei Deng’s absolutely effortless playing of both Walton’s concerto and Paganini’s La Campanella . The judges had a difficult decision in narrowing the twenty-seven quarterfinalists to only eight, but these semifinalists were announced on Tuesday evening: Matthew Cohen (USA) Yifei Deng (China)

Kyuri Kim (South Korea) Born Lau (Hong Kong) Kei Tojo (Japan) Manuel Vioque-Judde (France) Cong Wu (China) Zhanbo Zheng (China)

V OLUME 30 S UMMER 2014 O NLINE I SSUE

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