piano competition

Thanks for the advice. I have been intending to play my first-round pieces by memory. I feel they are pretty good and tight in my head right now - really I think I can play them with my eyes closed! But I'm just a little worried about what my brain will do when I'm actually sitting there in front of judges. Will my memory go out the window? I've copied my music and put in a black 3-ring binder (so it looks nice and neat) and think I will bring it to the piano but leave it sitting on the side of the piano - just in case. Except if I do have a problem, opening up the notebook and finding the page will take time and I only have 10 minutes to play and I timed myself a couple times yesterday - one time was 10 mins. 14 sec. and the other time was 9 mins 50 secs. so I you can see that I don't have time to spare! Hmmm...I may rethink this whole thing today....

Hye-Jin - they will provide a page-turner if I need one, but I already told them that I don't need one. I can do my own page-turning if necessary. I do agree with you about practicing with the music so you are used to doing so. I've learned that lesson the hard way...

George - Yes, no antibiotics since what I have is viral. But I am getting better; my throat still feels a bit like sandpaper, but it's like a 'fine grit' sandpaper now. And my arms still ache but it's the 'regular' ache/pain that I'm used to. I think by tomorrow it should be mostly all gone. And tomorrow is day of pampering - exercise class, and then to the salon where I'll get buffed, waxed, and polished all over. Oh and also a pedicure. Because of course one must have pretty toes to play the piano, right? :lol:

 

hehe - well, I may not have the skills necessary to make it past the first round, but I do have some skill in spending money on myself. :lol:

I've decided to put my music up on the piano but opened to just that one page of the mazurka where I sometimes stumble. At least that's my current plan as of this morning. Tonight is the first event - a 'meet and greet' dinner. I may try to ask around to see how many other competitors are using music.

my heart rate is already up....

I hope I don't shock them by playing terribly...

actually, I've just thought of a new tactic - I'm going to disguise myself so that if I do make a total fool of myself, no one will recognize me later. Yeah - I'll have them dye my hair a different color at the salon today...

I am not nervous, I am not nervous, I am not nervous, I am not nervous....

 

I never made it to the dinner! I drove through a tornado and then was stuck on the highway for 3 1/2 hours!

OMG this was a terrible night!! I thought I was going to blow away to China or something! We had some really really bad weather come through right at the time when I left my house to drive into the city. (I went by myself) Yes, I knew that storms were approaching, but I didn't think it was going to be so bad. So it's 5:00 and I'm all dolled up and my car is all gassed up and I get onto the highway for what should have been a 45-minute ride into Chicago. About 20 minutes in, the sky is getting blacker and blacker and it's raining like crazy - traffic is crawling on the highway. Then it gets even blacker or more like greener and the radio tells me that tornadoes are practically on top of where I'm at! So now I'm scared and crying - I hear all the tornado sirens going off in the surrounding towns, and I'm calling my husband on my cell phone and he's worried sick about me -and I can't see anything except that things are flying sideways in front of my car and everybody on the highway (it's a 'big' highway - 8 lanes) has stopped. Little by little the sky starts to brighten a bit. So good, I'm moving forward again - about 20 mph. Then we stop. And stay stopped for over 3 hours. Turns out a viaduct up ahead on the highway I was on flooded and they had to shut down the highway. I was trapped, along with hundreds maybe even a thousand other cars. Finally, I ended up turning my car completely around and going the opposite way down the highway until I could get myself onto another road and then to home. So that was my nice dinner with the other contestants. At least there is another one on Sunday night. Probably some other contestants had similar problems like me, though. Another major highway leading into the city was also shut down because of flash-flooding.

Well, I'll try again in the morning. I have to wake up at 5:00 and be in my car by 6:00. My time to try out the piano is at 8:24. Then I'll have two hours of time to myself in a practice room before my 'real' playing time which is 11:36. I'm so wired up right now though - how am I going to sleep tonight?

 

Hi Everyone! I was going to write a detailed report about my time yesterday but I have no time right now. :roll: I'm getting ready to head back into the city to hear today's contestants play. Regarding my playing yesterday - I made a few mistakes but I got to the end of my pieces. I have a lot of mixed feelings, but in general I have never been more relieved in my life!!
I have so much to tell you - bunches of interesting little tidbits to report, but like I said - no time. I'm keeping notes, though, so I'll write more later.

 

Hi again, Everybody.

Well, for better or for for worse, here is my report on the competition. Sorry it's kind of long, but I wanted to get most things down before I start forgetting.

So now it's Monday, the competition is over, and the first thing I will say is that I had the best time and I will definitely do it again!! I heard so much great music, made many new friends (as well as observed some 'interesting' characters :wink: :lol: ), and learned so many things that will help me next time around.

The piano was 7'6" Fazioli 228. Beautiful piano! I am so spoiled now!! It sounded and played like a dream piano - smooth, full and rich tone, keys weighted just right, the una corda pedal was especially something that was so incredible to me - the way it changed the tone of the piano but in such a subtle way. Just gorgeous - I can't say enough about how wonderful that piano is and boy do I wish I could have one! Here is a photo of me with it.





And here is a funny sign outside the recital hall that I took a picture of, which shows why I probably never will have one!





So anyway, the first round consisted of 60 players. As you already know, my turn to play was on Thursday at 11:36. They gave us a practice room for two hours prior to our playing time and so I practiced a little during that time, but was too antsy to stay in there for long periods. I periodically walked out and into the recital hall to listen to other competitors, but that made me even more nervous so then I'd have to just go out into the hallways and pace around for a while. Finally it got close to my time and they directed me to the green room (waiting room behind the stage), which really is green - a terribly awful color green - yuck - probably aided in making me feel nauseous. Three or four people were in there - the announcer, the recording technician, and a woman - a rather plump woman whose job was I think to make sure that contestants actually got onto the stage. In my case, as I sat in there and the announcer-man was asking me how to pronounce my name, another man was asking me if I needed a page-turner and things like that, I literally was so scared and almost ran out of the room. But that woman kept trying to calm me and giving me pep talks, and then when I heard my name being called I think she may have actually gently shoved me out the door so that I had no choice but to go forward with my turn to play. :lol:

Okay, so now I am standing there at the piano and do my little bow, and then sit down at the Fazioli. Minutes before I went on stage I arranged for the page-turner man to turn my pages. Since I saw that many other competitors were using music, I felt that it was fine. I didn't look at the music, though, except for one time when I stumbled - it was in the Chopin mazurka and funny that it wasn't in the place that I feared, but a different spot. I'm so glad I had the music up there, because I would have been pretty screwed otherwise. As to my playing in general - remember I took beta-blockers - I started off pretty well but out of the blue one hand completely forgot what it was supposed to do and stopped playing. In other words, a pretty big slip. It lasted about two or three measures. However, the other hand kept playing and then all of a sudden the 'weird' hand started up again and everything was fine again. I think it happed twice - each during different pieces. But I really think that the beta-blockers saved me, because I know how I freak out when something like this happens - both hands usually stop playing and I'd basically freeze. And also even though I had those couple of mishaps, I was actually enjoying sitting there and playing! My mind was telling me how much fun I was having, how nice that I was getting to play on such a fine instrument, how beautiful the music sounded, etc. That's never happened to me before! It really was just so surreal. When I was done and walked off the stage, that nice woman was there and gave me a big hug - like what I real mom would do. She did that with everybody.

It's weird, but now I can't even remember how I played. I know I made those two mess-ups, but I can't recall how my actual playing was, like technique and stuff like that. They recorded everything and I'm supposed to be able to get to hear it all once they finish the processing. Not sure I want to hear myself, but you know of course I really do. :wink: :lol: What's nice is the judges (five of them) all made comments on everybody and we were given those comments (except I can't read most of their handwritings). I'm going to try to decipher them later.

Some of the things I learned is that competitors can change their repertoire right at the last second - right before they go play if they want to. Several of them did that. Also, I was a little concerned that perhaps I had chosen pieces considered too easy for a competition, but other people had pieces in a similar vein; some were harder than mine, but some even easier than mine. One of my pieces was Chopin's Mazurka in A-flat op. 59, no. 2 and three other competitors also played it.

So after two days of preliminaries, the judges narrowed the field down to 12. That was very interesting and surprising - some of us felt that certain players should not have advanced and other players should have. Saturday afternoon was then the semi-finals and I sat through most of it and enjoyed listening to all the great music; most of which I knew, but some I did not. Really interesting to actually see firsthand all the different techniques utilized by so many different players!

Yesterday (Sunday) was the finals - again more surprises regarding the selection of the finalists. Sunday morning was a brunch at a nearby building where the Fazioli piano store is located, which also holds another recital hall. Competitors who did not make it into the finals were allowed to sign up to play in a sort of impromptu recital. Originally there were about ten slots available and players could play anything for about ten minutes. But turned out that about 20 people signed up to play. I signed up to play and almost regretted it later because the group at the brunch/recital were all top-players and sort of 'famous' in the world of amateur pianists. For me it was a little more nerve-wracking than playing for the judges! But I did it anyway - only played one piece - Granados' Spanish Dance no. 5. It actually went well and I received some nice comments from the others. (by the way - it was another Fazioli piano ) Something funny was that several of these people are really big piano hogs! You can't get them off the piano! Everywhere we went there were of course pianos and these people were practically fighting each other to sit down at the bench. Also, it amazed me that lots of them have so much repertoire in their heads - that they can just sit down and play pieces by memory whenever they have a piano at their disposal. And I'm talking 'big' pieces!

Anyway, after the brunch came the afternoon Finals concert. The five finalists played for a half-hour each. Afterwards, while the judges deliberated, the competition organizers allowed the rest of the competitors sitting in the audience to use the time (about 45 minutes) by taking turns going up to the piano and playing something. I did not raise my hand for this one. But funny again, because the same piano hogs went to the piano and wouldn't stop until somebody practically dragged them off so that another person could have a chance to play.

Regarding the outcome of the Finals - the pieces that they played were Chopin Sonata no. 3, Liszt B-minor Sonata, Boulez Sonata no. 2, Prokofiev Sonata no. 7, Haydn Sonata no. 55, and Schumann Phantasiebilder Op. 26. The best part is that a 71-year-old grandmother won first place!! Yay!!! The other finalists were nearly half her age. And Wow - the playing all around was amazing - such top-notch playing from so many people!

Afterwards we all went to a restaurant for a party. And now today - I am starting to come down from all the excitement and feel a little like I have just come home from summer camp. I enjoyed so much conversing with such interesting and talented people, and most of us said we'd all meet with each other again at the next competition. The Chicago organizers are currently debating whether to have the next competition in two or three years. Whenever it is, I will be there! I really wish very hard and hope that some of you can join me :!: :?: :!:

p.s. This is photo of me and one of my new friends taken at the party last night. His name is Abel and he was one of the finalists and came in third. He's from Spain but currently lives in Boston for at least the next year or so and then he goes back to Spain. Really a great player! He actually approached me earlier in the competition because he recognized my name from Piano Society! He said he has visited our site in the past, and I told him to come back and visit us again. He's a really nice guy!




And here is a photo of some more new friends. The woman on my right was like me - first-time competitor and all that. We hung around together the entire time. The woman across from me is very, very talented, and so is the guy sitting on my left. But very nice, interesting, and fun people!

 

Hi Alfonso, Sarah, Theresa, George, and Hye-Jin.

Thank you!!

I forgot to mention something before, which is that I know of at least two other players who also took beta-blockers. I know that because they told me and we compared our little prescriptions bottles. :lol: And I'd bet a thousand dollars that there were even more people doing the same thing. But Hye-Jin, you are right - it really was the 'angel network' that got me through!

As far as trying out the piano beforehand - we were allowed three minutes to test out the Fazioli on stage. After that was when we were given a private practice room upstairs. The piano in my room was a Yamaha upright. Not great, but it was in tune. I know some people had worse pianos in their rooms, and others had grands in their room. One other thing I liked about playing on the Fazioli was the bench! It was hydraulic - two levers on the ends where you simply lift up and the bench easily goes up or down to where you want it. Really cool - no more having to sit there are turn the knobs forever. One thing I saw was this one competitor didn't understand how to work it and he actually got down on his knees on the floor and tried lifting up the bench. I was cracking up - it was so funny!

George - I do know about the Boston Amateur Competition. Maybe we can both enter it one day. That would be so much fun to be there with you!!! My new friends were trying to convince me to enter the Van Cliburn amateur competition, which is fast approaching. They're going to do it - I said I'd think about it. During one of the evenings in Chicago, the director who made the documentary "They Came to Play" came and gave us a free screening of the film. If you don't know, the documentary is about the Van Cliburn Amateur competition - the behind the scenes stuff and the competitors involved, things like that. The film was made on the last VC competition held which I think was three years ago. Five people (competitors) in that film, some of the semi-finalists and also finalists were also in the Chicago competition. Ugh!! And you are right about some of these competitors being arrogant and having inflated egos. :x And it amazed me to learn that many of these people are entering competitions all the time. One woman competitor in our group was flying off to Sicily right after the Sunday night party because she was playing in another competition.

Regarding social activities during this competition - there was one dinner party on Wednesday night - the one I didn't make because I got stuck on the highway all that time. Then there was another party where they had a keg of beer and hired a Chicago blues pianist to come and entertain. I didn't go to that one because I needed to visit with some girlfriends - one of whom was in town visiting for the first time in decades and I wanted to see her. The other reason was that I was so extremely tired and felt that I needed to get some rest on one night at least. I had trouble sleeping during all this and you know how I was sick prior to the competition - well, I got sick again starting on Saturday with a cough. Still coughing my head off today, but it's getting better. Then another time, they took a group of us to the Chicago Art Institute for a private tour. I went along - it was on Thursday night, the day I played. I have this silly little thing where I always take a photo of myself standing by one of my favorite paintings there. And here it is: :lol: