Thoughts and Reflections: Roxanne McGettigan

 Roxanne and Tom McGettigan at the IVCI Opening Ceremonies

Four years ago, after living in Indianapolis for just a year, I read the near daily reviews of the violinists participating in the 7^th Quadrennial Violin Competition, not fully aware of the history of this renowned competition.    I had played the violin in junior high and high school, so was interested in this competition, not realizing the impact it would have on me four years later.  

When I was asked in November of 2009 if I would be interested in helping with the Opening Ceremonies for the 8^th Quadrennial Violin Competition, I don’t think it took me more than a few seconds to say yes.   It was during one of our first meetings that “host families” was mentioned, and again, it only took a few seconds for my husband and I to agree to this one of a kind opportunity.   As the months went by and we got closer to our participant’s arrival and to the Opening Ceremonies, I grew more and more excited.    So much so, I asked my parents to send my violin that they had been storing for over 25 years – so that after the competition I could begin re-learning how to play. 

As a member of the Opening Ceremonies Committee, I know first-hand the details that went into the planning of this very elegant event, but it also gave me a chance to have a back door view into the comprehensive planning of the competition as a whole.   By hosting a participant, Tom and I saw first-hand how hard the participants work at attempting to become the Gold winner, but it also gave us a back door view into the life of a young violinist who has spent the majority of her life devoted to her violin.    

Tom and I enjoyed all 16 days of the competition, but we miss the violin music that we heard throughout our home for hours, the discussions we had between our culture and Hyun Su Shin’s in South Korea, and the laughs we’d have after attempts to understand what we were trying to tell each other.  Through this experience, I have found an organization that I am excited to continue volunteering my time with, and we have made a life-long friend.

Roxanne McGettigan 

Indianapolis, IN

Thoughts and Reflections: Don Gilden

I am an amateur violinist who takes his music seriously.  I play every day and take lessons every week.  I have a sizable collection of CDs of the classical violin repertoire, many pieces by multiple artists.  I have always wanted to attend a violin competition, but never got to until the IVCI in September, 2010.  I was there for the final 4 nights and was not disappointed.  The abundance of talent in these fine young people from all over the world is considerable.  They played the great violin concertos by Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Beethoven and Bartok.  Listening to 3 concertos in one evening was stimulating, and I had trouble sleeping every night while "replaying" the pieces in my mind.  I am not given to hero worship, but these young people (all 6 finalists were in their 20s) are nothing short of sensational: talented, diligent, warm and bright.  The competition was intense, not for the faint of heart.  This was the equivalent of the Super Bowl and World Series of violin performance.  As good as the violinists are, they continued to practice all day and evening right up to the last day.  After one of the contestants played a Mozart violin concerto, I saw him in a practice room of the auditorium only minutes later playing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto that he was scheduled to play 48 hours later.  Although only one person won, none of them, in my mind, is a "loser."  I expect most of them will have wonderful careers as a violin artist, whether it be solo performing on the stages of the great cities around the world or in chamber music and recording for all to hear. 

 

"Enjoyable" does not adequately describe the experience of attending the competition.  The music, the atmosphere and the rivalry filled my senses.  Quite simply, it was an experience.  I loved being there and felt attached to the violinists, the brilliant conductor and talented orchestra who supported these marvelous young people and was eminently aware of the finely tuned administrators and organizers who helped make the IVCI the huge success it was.  I hope to return in 4 years.  

 

Don Gilden

Denver, Colorado 

Thoughts and Reflections: Introduction

2010 Gold Medalist Clara-Jumi Kang with her host family, Tibor Klopfer and Shawna Frazer-Klopfer. 

 

Here at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, we are constantly amazed and humbled by the number of dedicated volunteers and followers of the Competition.  Our fan base extends around the world--to highlight our incredibly diverse and international network of fans and supporters, we are going to launch into a project that highlights stories and reflections from various people who experienced the Competition in different ways: online, in-person, as a volunteer or a host family.  Check back regularly to read these remarkable reflections!

Competition 2010 Redux

It is the week following the Competition and IVCI staff are slowly but surely catching up on sleep, emails, voicemails, the list goes on and on!  Though our office looks as if the Tasmanian Devil took up residence over the past month, everything is relatively quiet. 

I thought it would be interesting to process some of the incredible moments and events that occurred in the past few weeks, and also thank some of the people that were (and are) integral to the success of the IVCI. 

First off, the Competition would not have been a success without the incredible support of our volunteers!  During the Preliminaries and Semi-Finals, we had over 150 volunteers on site at various times helping with ushering, ticketing, the boutique, hospitality, set-up, take-down etc.  There were volunteers to lend a hand for virtually any task you can imagine.  The past 3 weeks were a real testament to Hoosier hospitality and the incredible spirit of volunteerism within our city. 

Speaking of hospitality, we also need to thank our incredible network of Participant and Jury host families.  These are people who graciously opened up their homes to our international array of Participants and Jurors and truly made their experience in Indianapolis special.  We have had numerous comments from our Participants and Jurors about how welcomed and warmly received they felt.  I think it is safe to say that many of our Participants leave knowing they will always have a home here in Indianapolis.

One question we always receive is this: "What do you do during the 4 years between Competitions?"  The answer is a variety of things.  Most importantly, we manage and promote the careers of our Laureates.  The success of "The Indianapolis" is contingent on the successful careers of our Laureates.  Our Laureates make up an incredible list of concert soloists, concertmasters of major orchestras, chamber musicians, and noted pedagogues.  We also present a Laureate Series featuring a wonderful array of chamber music concerts and recitals throughout the season in Indianapolis.  We would love to see you at any and all of our events and we hope you check back here often to read more about the exciting happenings of the IVCI organization!

Isaac Thompson
Manager of Special Projects 

Announcement of 2010 Laureates

The Eighth Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis has come to an end.  Throughout these 16 days, we have heard incredible performances from all of our 40 participants.  IVCI would like to thank all the participants for an amazing two weeks of music-making.

Now, to announce the 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis Laureates:

Gold Medalist: Clara-Jumi Kang, South Korea/Germany
Silver Medalist: Soyoung Yoon, South Korea
Bronze Medalist: Benjamin Beilman, United States 
Fourth Place Laureate: Haoming Xie, China
Fifth Place Laureate: Antal Szalai, Hungary
Sixth Place Laureate: Andrey Baranov, Russia

Congratulations to our Laureates and to all the participants!

Please join us tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Cathedral for the Closing Awards Ceremony, where the special prizes for the 2010 Competition will be announced and the Laureates will perform.

Behind the Scenes: Glen Kwok

We sat down with Glen Kwok, Executive Director of the Violin Competiton, to ask him how he thinks the Eighth Quadrennial has been going.  Check it out!

Notes from Indy!

Hi all,

It has been an exciting couple of weeks in Indianapolis with the Preliminaries and Semi-Finals of the Eighth Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis occuring.  All of the Participants have performed stunningly!

This past evening, 2006 Gold Medalist Augustin Hadelich returned to perform a recital at the Christel Dehaan Fine Arts Center.  It was an incredible concert of works by Beethoven, Poulenc, Schnittke, Ysyae, and Sarasate.  The appreciative audience was also treated to a heartfelt encore performance of Fritz Kreisler's Liebesleid.

The Competition resumes tonight with the first of two nights of Classical Finals (Mozart or Haydn Concerti) at the Christel Dehaan Fine Arts Center with the Indianapolis Symphony under the direction of Samuel Wong.  If you can't catch the performances live in-person, check out the live streaming from the Violin Competition's website: www.violin.org!  You can also watch the live stream directly from your iPhone through the Competition's very own app!  Please join us!

Isaac

Finalists are announced!

Late last evening, the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis announced the 6 Finalists after a thrilling 4 days of Semi-Final performances!  The Finalists are as follows (in alphabetical order):

Andrey Baranov
Benjamin Beilman
Clara Jumi-Kang
Antal Szalai
Haoming Xie
Soyoung Yoon

For more information on the Finalists and the performance schedule for the final round, please visit www.violin.org

Behind the Scenes: Nikki Chooi

Isaac Thompson catches up with Nikki Chooi after his Semi-Finals performance.  This is what the Canadian native said about his performance!

Behind the Scenes: Danbi Um

Hello Again!

Tonight we talked with Danbi Um after her wonderful performance in the IVCI Semi-Finals.  Check it out!

Behind the Scenes: Stella Chen

Hey IVCI fans,

We caught up with Stella Chen after her brilliant performance in the Semi-Finals.  Here's what she said!

Behind the Scenes: the Broadcast Room, Green Room, & On-Deck Area

Here is our second installment of our Behind the Scenes look at the 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.  Today we introduce you to Michael Toulouse and Steve Shipps, our broadcast team.  If you're following our live stream or listening to the performances on-demand, these are your wonderful hosts!  Also, get a taste of what the participants experience in the Green Room and On-Deck Areas of the Indiana History Center.  Enjoy!

Behind the Scenes: the Sound/Streaming booth!

Here is our first behind the scenes look at the IVCI!  As you may know, we stream the entire Competition live over the internet through our website (www.violin.org).  Considerable work and energy goes into bringing the streaming video and the high quality sound to you, anywhere in the world.  We caught up with our streaming engineer, Jay Ray and IVCI Photographer Denis Kelly in the sound booth.  Check out the brief tour!

First day of Preliminaries!

Today has been an exciting first day of Preliminaries for the 8th Quadrennial Violin Competition of Indianapolis!  The distinguished jury has heard 10 of our spectacular international participants.  Another exciting aspect of this first day is the fact that we are streaming the Competition live through our iPhone app.  We are proud to be one of the first performing arts organizations in the world to do a mobile streaming project of this magnitude.  Remember that you can also catch all the action streamed live through our website: www.violin.org 

In addition to this, we are constantly updating our Facebook fan page--check there for posted photos and updates.  In addition, we will be posting videos and photos here on our blog!  Stay tuned for more!

Fantastic Opening Ceremonies!

Yesterday evening, the 8th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis kicked off with a wonderful opening ceremony at the beautiful Scottish Rite Cathedral downtown Indianapolis.  In addition to a wonderful 5 course meal, the Indianapolis Children's Choir and members of Dance Kaleidoscope performed. 

Dance Kaleidoscope performs at the IVCI Opening Ceremony!

The Preliminaries start tomorrow!  Stay tuned here or at www.violin.org to follow all the action!

Participants Order!

Yesterday night, we had our first meeting with all the 2010 IVCI Participants to determine the order of performance for the preliminaries.  Each participant drew a number randomly which dictated where within the preliminary round they would perform.  The order has been posted on our website.

The participants eagerly awaiting the drawing of their times for the preliminaries! 

Meet the 2010 IVCI Jury!

Much of the artistic strength of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis comes from the incredible international stature and reputation of our esteemed Jury.  Our Jury is led by the renowned violinist and pedagogue, Jaime Laredo.  Mr. Laredo is a Professor of Violin at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music as well as a distinguished conductor.

Meet the other Jury Members!

Pamela Frank: International concert artist and professor at the Curtis Institute of Music, Peabody Institute, and SUNY-Stony Brook.

Rodney Friend: Former concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, and BBC Symphony Orchestra.  Currently a senior lecturer at the Royal College of Music

Yuzuko Horigome: International concert artist and guest professor at the Brussels Conservatory.

Boris Kuschnir: Member of the Kopelman Quartet and Professor at the Vienna Conservatory.

Jean-Jacques Kantorow: Permanent Guest Conductor of the Laussane Chamber Orchestra and professor at the Paris and Rotterdam Conservatories.

Cho-Liang Lin: International concert artist and Professor of Violin at Rice Unviersity's Shepherd School of Music.

Mihaela Martin: 1982 IVCI Gold Medalist, international concert artist, and professor at the Cologne Musikhochschule.

Joel Smirnoff: Former violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet and current President of the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Great IndyHub Event!

Wednesday night was an incredibly exciting evening for the IVCI as we teamed up with IndyHub (Indianapolis's fantastic young professionals networking organization headed by the terrific Molly Chavers) to host an event generously sponsored by Barnes and Thornburg, LLP.  It was a great evening of wine, hors d'oeuvres, conversation, and music!  Our 2006 Laureate Bella Hristova was in town and brilliantly performed selections by Bach and Ysaye.  We hope to engage even more young Hoosiers in this year's Competition!

Check out out our website, Facebook page, or twitter feed to learn more and connect! 

Gearing up to the Competition!

Things have shifted into high gear here at the IVCI office!  We are less than a month away from the arrival of 40 of the world's most talented young musicians as well as our distinguished jury and guests!  You can feel the energy in the office...all very exciting!

This year we have so many different ways to connect in ways to connect into the Competition.  You can download our free iPhone app, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or check this Blog regularly!  We are also going to be streaming the finals at a very high-bandwidth to several universities around the United States.  It will be the closest thing one can get to actually being in a seat at Hilbert Circle Theatre.  We will be releasing the list of Universities shortly!  Be sure to check back here and our website www.violin.org for all the latest.  

Joan Tower

For each Competition, IVCI commissions a new work to be premiered in the Semi-Final round .  The commissioned work tests the interpretive skills of the young artists in a piece with no performance history. It is also our hope that the piece will be performed beyond the Competition and become a valued addition to the contemporary violin repertoire.  For the 2010 Competition, we are thrilled to have commissioned the eminent American composer Joan Tower to compose the new work  Her piece, entitled String Force, is for solo violin and will be premiered and performed by each Semi-Finalist September 17-20.  We are also thrilled that she will be able to join us in Indianapolis for a few days during the Competition! Check out this interview with Joan Tower as she discusses the importance of new music:

Strings Magazine

An exciting preview of the 2010 IVCI appeared in the most recent issue of Strings Magazine!  Find a section of the article below and follow the link at the bottom of the post to read the entire article! 

In mid-May, violinist Augustin Hadelich prepared to embark on a whirlwind tour of Europe, flying from New York to Germany to perform the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Würzburger Philharmoniker before heading to Newcastle and then on to Helsinki, for a performance of Mozart’s Concerto No. 5 with renowned conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya. The already exhausting junket was complicated further by the fact that Hadelich was slated to fly Icelandair with a layover in Reykjavik, where travel remained at a standstill because of the lingering volcanic ash cloud. Having played on several continents in the past four years, 26-year-old Hadelich has become a well-seasoned traveler. So, unfazed, he re-routed his trip via London and arrived in Germany, jetlagged, but ready to play.

Hadelich’s dizzying performance schedule is a testament to his talent. The New York Times raved: “[Hadelich] plays with dazzling technique, a gorgeous tone, and penetrating, spontaneous musicality.” And Hadelich’s rise to fame has been buoyed by his 2006 victory at the prestigious International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.

“It really got things going for me,” Hadelich says. “Suddenly with this competition people heard my name for the first time.”

In September, the music community will be hearing the name of another young gifted violinist when the IVCI, often referred to as the “Olympics of the violin world” because it is held every four years and boasts considerable prestige, crowns another laureate. For 17 days, violinists aged 16 to 29 will compete over four intensive rounds. The program is “designed to test the breadth of their musicianship,” IVCI executive director Glen Kwok says. 

To read the rest of the article, please click here.

Happy Birthday to our Executive Director, Mr. Glen Kwok!

Exciting Giveaways!

In our effort to make this year's Competition as accessible to everyone around the world, we are encouraging fans to join us on Facebook, Twitter, and through our iPhone app!  In the coming weeks, we will be having some fun giveaways for our Facebook and Twitter fans--look for opportunities to win CD's, DVD's, and tickets to the Competition coming this September!

Augustin Hadelich video!

Our 2006 Gold Medalist, Augustin Hadelich is creating a lot of buzz around the classical music world having recently made his debut with the New York Philharmonic and conductor Alan Gilbert!  Congrats Augustin!

Check out this awesome music video of Augustin performing Sarasate's Zapateado!
Augustin performs Zapateado!

Welcome!

Welcome to the official 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis (IVCI) blog!  My name is Isaac Thompson and I will your "blogging" guide throughout the Eighth Quadrennial Violin Competition of Indianapolis!

I'm looking forward to sharing all the exciting  happenings of the upcoming Competition (Sept. 10-26)!  Check back here often for updated news, interesting information on the participants, and thoughts as we approach the exciting (and for us, exhausting) month of September.  Prepare yourself for the "Olympics of the Violin"!

IJT