Nicholas Carthy - Conductor, Pianist closely with Luciano Berio on several projects; and with soloists including RaduLupu, Alicia de Nicholas Carthy broadcasts regularly as conductor and pianist. http://www.diemusikseite.at/member-lang-en-id-21.html
Smithsonian Journeys-Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition While most competitors are in their mid20s, at least one, the Romanian pianist RaduLupu, got in at 16, and the guillotine of the selection committee falls at http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/journeys/01/mar01/music_competition.html
Extractions: by Rudolph Chelminski A couple of years ago, in Brussels on assignment for Smithsonian , I took a stroll along the rue de la Régence from the Royal Palace and the Royal Museums, and within a couple of minutes I came upon the Royal Conservatory of Music, a typically imposing Bruxellois edifice of cumbrously unidentifiable (but presumably royal) style. Smithsonian (March 2000) I could hardly have come to a better place than this, because placing in the eponymous Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition , founded 50 years ago by Belgium's gracious, music-loving sovereign of the moment, skyrockets the careers of talented young soloists in four disciplines: piano, violin, singing and composition. Every four years one of the disciplines comes around again, and hopeful talents from all over the world flock to Brussels to try their luck. While most competitors are in their mid-20s, at least one, the Romanian pianist Radu Lupu, got in at 16, and the guillotine of the selection committee falls at age 30. The focus is on youth, then, but not babies. Lupu was an exception, explained Cécile Ferrière, then secretary-general of the competition. "We don't want prodigies," she told me in her sunny office opposite the great music barn. "This is the most grueling of competitions, and we demand artists who have reached a certain maturity. We look for more than the circus act of pure technique alone. We're not impressed by Liszts. We get plenty of them in the first elimination round."
Book You have insight and describe things with so much candor and sensitivity. RADULUPU. A pianist s Landscape reveals the interior world of a total musician. http://www.montparker.com/book.html
Extractions: This personal diary kept by a pianist preparing for her Carnegie Recital Hall debut in New York, is a provocative account of the entire experience from the moment of decision, through months of work and development to the event itself. Told with humor and surprising candor, it probes and reveals her innermost responses and takes the reader along on a roller-coaster of emotions from terror to exhilaration. This superb diary was without question, one of the most un-put-downable bits of music journalism that I have come across in many years. GLENN GOULD I was on my way to do a recital on the West Coast when I read your book. Seeing how much it meant to you to have the privilege of playing the great works, and sharing the miracle of their creation with your public, and your humility throughout, awoke in me that which was temporarily dormant...my own feeling of being privileged to be a concert pianist. Thank you for your inspiring book. HORACIO GUTIERREZ I greatly admired your Anatomy of a New York Debut Recital when it first came out and just now I have hunted it down in my library and found it to be just as good as I remembered it. Rereading it gave me a flush of satisfaction. Over the years I have always been impressed by your thoughtful, direct approach.
