The New England Piano Teachers’ Association, wishing to encourage excellence in piano performance, offers annual prize competitions. Any teacher who has been a member in good standing since September of the current school year may enter two students in each of the high school divisions and two students in the Middle School Competition. Performance of Liszt: Cantique d'Amour as an audition piece for Dr.
56 international pianists compete in Cambridge
MCGRATHPR.com – Boston Piano Amateurs Association (BPAA) celebrates its 10th Boston International Piano Competition from June 5 through 8 at Longy School of Music’s Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall, 27 Garden Street Cambridge. The four-day biennial event draws top talent competitors from around the globe. Competition rounds and awards presentations are open to the public, under the leadership of Competition Director Robert S. Finley.
BPAA’s Boston International PianoCompetition attracts highly talented adult amateur pianists age 30 and abovefrom across the globe, passionate as performing artists, second to their maincareers. Contestants are often highlysuccessful doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, accountants or flightattendants, in addition to performing as technically adept and musical pianoamateurs with truly magnificent skill. Many have multiple accolades on their competition resume, havingperformed in recital and with orchestras locally and internationally. The 2019 roster boasts 56 competitorssummoning from Japan, China, Russia, Germany, France, Ireland, the UnitedKingdom, the Netherlands, Canada and from across the United States, some localto Boston.
“It is gratifyingto witness how much our competition has grown, and how highly regarded it hasbecome, attracting wonderful pianists from all over the world, inspiring and motivating all of us to improve our levelof performance to the highest standard possible,” shares DirectorFinley. “Itis a joy to contribute to enriching the cultural life of Boston and to interestfans new and old with classical music and exceptional piano performance.”
The BostonInternational Piano Competition is divided into gold and silver “streams”.The silver stream features two rounds, preliminary and final, with 15-minutesmaximum of repertoire from each competitor in each round. The jury listens tosilver stream contestants and selects several to progress to the final round.The jury then listens to the finalists and selects first, second and thirdprize winners.
The gold stream is athree-round competition with preliminary, semifinal and final rounds of 15, 15and 30-minutes in duration. The jury listens to the preliminary roundcontestants, selects semifinalists, listens to select the finalists, and thenlistens to the finalists to select the grand prizewinner, second and thirdprize winners.
Following the competition, an awardsceremony is held on Saturday where prize winners, including the grand prizewinner, are announced. Special prizes forthe best performances of romantic, classical, baroque, modern piano pieces areawarded, as well as an audience prize, selected by audience ballot.
The competition venue at Longy’sEdward M. Pickman Hall features an exceptional Steinway instrument andexcellent acoustics for the mutual appreciation of audiences and performingartists alike. The competition iswebcast live to a worldwide audience, judged by five world renowned concertpianists and professors of piano from New England Conservatory, the BostonConservatory and Boston University, and the Longy School of Music at BardCollege, including Michael Lewin (Chairman), Eri Nakamura, Jonathan Bass,Wayman Chin, and Gila Goldstein. Competitionwinners are awarded cash prizes, and the grand prize winner performs in recitalthe following calendar year.
10thBoston International Piano Competition Schedule:
Preliminary Round: Wednesday, June 5 and Thursday, June 6,12:15 pm to 8:30 pm
Silver Stream Finals, Gold Stream Semifinals: Friday, June7, 1:30 pm to 8 pm
Gold Stream Finals: Saturday, June 8, 1:30 pm to 5 pm
Boston Piano Amateurs Association,founded in 2001, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the visionof promoting Boston as a center for non-professional pianistic excellence, andenriching its cultural life; interesting and educating the public in classicalmusic and piano playing; providing performance opportunities, masterclasses andworkshops for adult non-professional pianists of all levels, to help improvetheir playing; and offering biennial piano competitions for outstandingnon-professionals.
All rounds of the BostonInternational Piano Competition are open to the public, admission is free. Tolearn more, visit Boston Piano Amateurs Association at bostonpianoamateurs.org,follow Boston Amateaurs Association on Facebook, or contact the CompetitionDirector at 508-393-6740. For moreinformation about the event venue at Longy School of Music of Bard College’sEdward M. Pickman Hall, visit longy.edu.
About the Boston International Piano Competition
Founded in 2001 by the Boston PianoAmateurs Association, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, Boston Piano Amateurs Association(BPAA), founded in 2001, is a tax-exempt non-profit organization dedicated tothe vision of promoting Boston as a center for non-professional pianisticexcellence, and enriching its cultural life; interesting and educating thepublic in classical music and piano playing; providing performanceopportunities, masterclasses and workshops for adult non-professional pianistsof all levels, to help improve their playing; and offering biennial pianocompetitions for outstanding non-professionals.
The Boston International PianoCompetition (BIPC) debuted in 2001 at Boston Conservatory of Music and SandersTheatre in Cambridge. The biennial competition originated from a committeeof piano musician enthusiasts, out of their mutual appreciation for amateurpiano competitions, under the leadership of Competition Director Robert S.Finley.
BIPC attracts highly talented adultamateur pianists over the age of 30 from across the globe, passionate asperforming artists, second to their main careers. Contestants are often highly successfuldoctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, accountants or flight attendants, inaddition to performing as technically adept and musical piano amateurs withtruly magnificent performances. Manyhave multiple accolades on their competition resume, having performed withorchestras locally and internationally. The 2019 roster of competitors summon from Japan, China, Russia,Germany, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada and fromacross the United States, some local to Boston.
Celebrating its 10thbiennial competition in 2019, BIPC now helms from Longy School of Music’sEdward M. Pickman Hall, featuring an exceptional Steinway instrument andexcellent acoustics for the mutual appreciation of audiences and performingartists alike. The competition iswebcast live to a worldwide audience, judged by five world renowned concertpianists and professors of piano from New England Conservatory, the BostonConservatory and Boston University. Competition winners are awarded cash prizes, and the grand prize winnerperforms in recital the following calendar year.
All rounds of the BostonInternational Piano Competition are open to the public, admission isfree. To learn more, visit Boston Piano Amateurs Association at bostonpianoamateurs.org,follow Boston Amateaurs Association on Facebook, or contact the CompetitionDirector at 508-393-6740. For moreinformation about the event venue at Longy School of Music of Bard College’sEdward M. Pickman Hall, 27 Garden Street, Cambridge, visit longy.edu.
Benefactor[edit]
The name Peabody Mason comes from Miss Fanny Peabody Mason, who until her death in 1948 was an active patron of music both in the United States and abroad. Her musical interests were piano, singing and chamber music.
Concert series premiere[edit]
The Peabody Mason Concerts were inaugurated in 1891 with a performance by Ferruccio Busoni.[1] The inaugural concert took place in the Mason music room, which had not been used by the family since the death of Miss Mason's mother.
In the years that followed, at her homes in Boston and in Paris, in Beverly on the North Shore and on her two-thousand-acre (8 km²) estate in Walpole, New Hampshire, Miss Mason continued to offer recitals by Ignacy Paderewski,[1]Arthur Rubinstein,[1] the Alfred Cortot-Jacques Thibaud-Pablo Casals trio, Emma Calvé, Maggie Teyte, the Nadia Boulanger Chamber Ensemble, Alexander Brailowsky, Egon Petri[1] and Earl Wild, among many others. In 1945, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she gave a festival of Fauré’s music, including his opera Pénélope in concert form as a centennial commemoration of the birth of Gabriel Fauré. Miss Mason also commissioned Bohuslav Martinu’s Quintet for Piano and Strings, which was performed at her Boston residence at 211 Commonwealth Avenue in the presence of the composer.[1]
Boston International Piano Competition
The artist for many of the concerts presented by Miss Mason was pianist Paul Doguereau. Doguereau organized the commemorative Fauré Festival and was also the pianist for the performance of the Martinu Piano Quintet. First-prize recipient in piano at the Paris Conservatory, Doguereau studied under several eminent musicians including Emil von Sauer, Egon Petri, Ignaz Paderewski and Maurice Ravel. He concertized in Europe and North America and devoted much of his time to organizing the Peabody Mason concerts.
Passing The Torch[edit]
In her later years, Miss Mason transferred more of the responsibilities to her friend, pianist Paul Doguereau. They had often discussed presenting classical music at its best as a gift to general audiences. Upon her death in 1948, Miss Mason left a trust for musical enterprises under Mr. Doguereau’s direction. The Peabody Mason concerts continued to faithfully reflect the aspirations and purposes of Miss Mason.
In 1950, the Peabody Mason concerts were re-dedicated to the ideal of presenting established artists as well as young artists in concert. In keeping with this aim, the concerts that followed from 1950 to 1985 featured some of the world’s most celebrated musicians.
In April 1950, the re-dedicated Peabody Mason concerts began its first series with the Boston debut of the Juilliard String Quartet. During the first year, excerpts were given from Henry Purcell’s opera The Fairy Queen, conducted by Daniel Pinkham, who was in the early stages of his career, with Phyllis Curtin, a rising opera star at the time who sang the title role. As part of the same program, Pinkham conducted his own composition, a concertino for small orchestra and piano, composed for and dedicated to Paul Doguereau, the soloist.
The concerts took place in Sanders Theater and in Paine Hall in Cambridge, and in Jordan Hall and at the Gardner Museum in Boston. Under the auspices of Peabody Mason, concerts were also given at Columbia University and Alice Tully Hall in New York City, Brown University in Providence and at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Brookline.
Appearing during the years since the re-dedication of the Peabody Mason concerts were the Boston/Cambridge debut recitals of pianists Glenn Gould, Maurizio Pollini, Horacio Gutierrez, Nelson Freire, Gerhard Oppitz, Antonio Barbosa, Ronald Turini and Pascal Devoyon; baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau,[2]Gérard Souzay and Håkan Hagegård; harpsichordist Rafael Puyana; sopranos Régine Crespin and Elly Ameling; guitarist Julian Bream; the New York Pro Musica with Noah Greenberg, conductor; the Quartetto di Roma, the Quintetto Chigiano and the Trio Pasquier. These are only several of many distinguished debut performances.
Returning to the Boston area to give Peabody Mason concerts were guitarist Julian Bream; flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal; violinist Joseph Fuchs; pianists Guiomar Novaes, Earl Wild, Alicia de Larrocha, Andre Watts, Maurizio Pollini, Georg Demus, Paul Badura-Skoda, Noël Lee, Andrew Rangell, Eugen Indjic and Misha Dichter; mezzo-sopranos Dame Janet Baker and Teresa Berganza; and renowned ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic Octet, the Hungarian String Quartet, the Virtuosi di Roma, the Stuttgart Orchestra, the Lukas Foss Improvisation Chamber Ensemble, the Emerson String Quartet and the New York Vocal Arts Ensemble. Among well-known Boston artists, Donna Roll performed a lieder recital and pianist Luise Vosgerchian gave a concert of chamber music with the violinist Emanuel Borok. These performances were but a few from a long list of illustrious artists who appeared in the Peabody Mason concerts.
The Legacy Continues[edit]
In 1995, the trust was gifted to the Boston Symphony Orchestra,[3] although Doguereau’s adopted son, Dr. Harrison Slater Wignall, continued to present outstanding artists in his Boston home at 192 Commonwealth Avenue in the years after Paul Doguereau’s death and up until his death in 2017.[3][4][5][6] Artists at Slater’s concerts included: David Korevaar; Sergey Schepkin; Richard Bosworth; Janice Weber; Ian Lindsey, Marcus Thompson, Igor Lovchinsky; Laura Villafranca; Stephen Porter; cellist Francesco Vila; Joel Cohen and Anne Azéma of the Boston Camerata; tenor Zachary Stains; Joanna Kurkowitz; and Oleksandr Poliykov. On April 6, 2017 Dr. Harrison Slater Wignall died at his residence in Mt. Holly, NJ at the age of 66. The Paul Doguereau and Slater Wignall Peabody Mason legacy ended with Slater Wignall's death.
Peabody Mason International Piano Competition[edit]
In recent years, Peabody Mason has also held a piano competition. In the past, the winner received a yearly stipend plus a New York City and a Boston recital. The first Peabody Mason International Piano Competition was held in 1981, with others following in 1984 and 1985. In 2010, Dr. Harrison Slater, the adopted son of Paul Doguereau, once again launched the piano competition as an international event for the 2010 Chopin year (200th anniversary of his birth[7]). Previous winners have included Peter Orth, David Korevaar and Robert Taub. The 2010 competition proved to be the last with the death of Dr. Harrison Slater Wignall in 2017.
Notes[edit]
- ^ abcdeSlater, Harrison Gradwell, 'Behind Closed Doors', Keyboard Classics, 1987
- ^Boston Globe, 7-Nov-1958
- ^ abNew York Times, Obituary, 9-Mar-2000
- ^Associated Press, Obituary, 5-Mar-2000
- ^Richard Dyer, 'Farewell to a Legend', The Boston Globe, 10-Mar-2000
- ^The Boston Herald, Obituary, 3-March-2000
- ^'Biography'. www.chopin.pl. Archived from the original on April 23, 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-30.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
8. https://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/article/20170416/obituaries/304169774
Links[edit]
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fanny Peabody Mason. |
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paul Doguereau. |
Boston Piano Competition 2019
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to Harrison Slater. |