TxMike
Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn, Jr., was an American pianist who achieved worldwide recognition in 1958, at the age of 23, when he won the first quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, graduated from high school in little Kilgore, Texas, then made Ft. Worth, Texas his adopted home. He died only recently in 2013. Winning that competition instantly threw Cliburn into the international spotlight as a concert pianist. Fairly quickly, in 1962, a group of friends and admirers began the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition as a living legacy to Mr. Cliburn's interests to aid the development of young artists. The Van Cliburn competition is held every four years, the most recent in 2013. The competition consists up to three full recital programs, new work performance, chamber music, and two concertos for each competitor. For the competitors, the best young pianists from all over the world, it is a pressure-packed competition.This is a fine 90-minute documentary, I viewed it on the PBS network. It doesn't focus exclusively on the actual competition, in fact it does not include any complete performances. It focuses on several key pianists, with interviews and what their lives off-stage are like. How they got started, what their family is like, how much they have to practice, what they think about having to "compete." Perhaps the highlight for me was the young pianist from Ukraine whose father had left 23 years earlier to America. Shortly before the competition the young man looked up and found his father on Facebook and they made contact. The father had no idea what his son had become and upon 'Googling' him found photos and articles of his son's piano virtuosity. The father was able to travel down from Boston and meet up with his son for the first time in 23 years, and they seemed to get on very well.I suspect the filmmakers shot a lot of footage of each competitor, not knowing who the winner and top three would be. So in editing the final version they were able to put more focus on the eventual winners. That way, when we see the results at the end we almost feel like we know them.Very nice documentary of a very important competition.SPOILERS: The young man from Ukraine, Vadym Kholodenko, was the overall winner, a fitting exclamation point to a great story. He currently resides in Fort Worth, Texas with his wife and two daughters.
