Horowitz competition winners perform in TWG Cultural Fund concert (10/19/03)

Horowitz competition winners perform in TWG Cultural Fund concert

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - Three medal winners in this year's Vladimir Horowitz competition for young pianists held in Kyiv, displayed their talent here on October 5 before an appreciative audience at The Lyceum, the historical museum of Old Town Alexandria, Va.

Their recital launched the 2003-2004 concert series of the Cultural Fund of The Washington Group, which has introduced previous winners of the competition named after the Kyiv-born world-renowned pianist to the capital area in its earlier series as well. The series is produced in cooperation with the Embassy of Ukraine.

The winners performing on this year's international tour were:

Rachel Cheung Wai Ching, 12, a student of the Hong Kong Academy of Arts, who won the gold medal in the junior group;
Oleksandr Chugay, 16, a student of the Lysenko Conservatory in Kyiv, who received the bronze medal in the intermediate group; and
Tsimur Shcharbakou, 20, who studies at the Belarus Academy of Music, who won in the senior group with a silver medal (the gold medal was not awarded in that group this year).

Their program, which included works by the composers frequently played at piano competition recitals - J.S. Bach, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Paganini and Liszt - also featured pieces by two Ukrainian composers. Ms. Ching played the "Toccata" by Arkadiy Filipenko, and Mr. Chugay played Lev Revutsky's "Prelude."

At the conclusion of the recital the performers were joined on stage by the cultural attachés from the embassies of Ukraine and Belarus, Natalia Holub and Nikolai Ovsyanko, respectively.

The International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz was initiated in Kyiv in 1994. Since then, 473 young pianists from 26 countries have participated in the competition, and its prize winners have performed on tours in Ukraine, the United States, Australia, Israel, France, Russia, Great Britain, Romania, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malaysia, China, Croatia and Japan.

The fifth competition, held in Kyiv from April 17 to May 3 of this year, attracted 82 pianists from 17 countries; 18 - from Australia, Belarus, China, Japan, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine - were awarded prizes.

This year's Horowitz winners' international tour included performances in Paris, Geneva, Kyiv, Moscow, New York, Alexandria, Atlanta and Mobile, Ala. It also marked the 100th anniversary of Vladimir Horowitz's birth. He was born in Kyiv on October 1, 1903; he died in 1989.

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The next concert in the TWG Cultural Fund series, scheduled for November 16, will feature cellists Natalia Khoma and Suren Bagratuni, and pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky.

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