Russian, Ukrainian Pianists Focus on International Language: Classical Music

To Russian and Ukrainian competitors at this year’s Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the mother tongue is music.

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Somewhere in the footnotes of history was a philosopher — the name escapes — of apparently good taste, who concluded after a life of thought and experience that music was a damned fine thing for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which because it diminished the “beast in men.”

No one lived that reality quite like the estimable Van Cliburn, who quite literally turned the Cold War warm with a maestro’s touch that left even Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, a bowling ball of a man, in awe of the Texan’s talent and personality.

“From the reception I received, I think there’s a bit of Texas in the Russians, and I told them so,” Cliburn said as he stepped off a plane in New York mere weeks after winning the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958. With a rendition of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto in the finals, he wowed everyone in sight, turning him instantly into classical music’s Elvis, including, but not limited to, the fawning, screaming, adoring fans and all the rest of it.

It was a triumph of the transcendence of art and music, of the soul, and for understanding between East and West, capitalist and communist.

“They are really sensitive, and they really love music, and that doesn’t mean only Russian music,” Cliburn concluded.

Since 1962, pianists from all parts of the world, including Russia, have traveled to Fort Worth to take part in The Cliburn International Piano Competition, which again opens this month with 30 participants seeking one of the most coveted prizes in their art.

For 60 years, the quadrennial competition has met its creed of sharing classical music with the largest possible international audience, which has grown through the development of the streaming video. The event runs from June 2-18 at the Van Cliburn Concert Hall at TCU and Bass Performance Hall downtown.

This year, The Cliburn opens under circumstances it never has before seen in its 60 years. Officials are set to welcome 15 Russian and one Ukrainian competitor, all of whom have not a thing to do with the open hostilities of a hot war between Russia and Ukraine begun by Napoleon le petit, the Russian despot with a Soviet streak and runaway hubris, who rather than strength has shown the world his hand, and it’s a 2-7 offsuit.

The war Vladimir Putin started could very well turn out to be his Waterloo. That determination is unknown, but however the conflict is resolved, it will likely go down as a noted example of the terrible waste of war in terms of human and economic treasure.

“I believe music is an international language as the history of arts also confirms,” says Anna Geniushene, one of the 15 Russians competing. “Our world is giving us a lot of opportunities: You might change your religion views, city of living, occupation, gender, passport, but you cannot change your birth country.

“We all are the victims of the situation, and sadly, we cannot stop the chaos; however, we might speak out and spread the word around. I would really like to share my music, and this remains to be my priority during any kind of activities in the world.”

Mere moments after the first shots were fired, anything resembling a Russian bear was sent to the back of the line or banished from it altogether.

The Tchaikovsky Competition, itself, received expulsion papers. The World Federation of International Music Competitions voted to exclude it from membership, effective immediately, with the caveat of not supporting blanket sanctions and discrimination against all Russians.

“In the face of Russia’s brutal war and humanitarian atrocities in Ukraine, the WFIMC as an apolitical organization cannot support or have as a member, a competition financed and used as a promotional tool by the Russian regime.”

The World Federation of International Music Competitions, founded in 1957, is a network of more than 110 internationally recognized organizations dedicated to identifying the most promising young talents in music. The Cliburn is a member.

That all could be a mistake. Isolation restricts the impact a guy like Cliburn could have inside the country. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

At the Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Alberta, Geniushene, 31, was one six Russian pianists who had their invitations revoked in April. Two others are also Cliburn competitors, Elizaveta Kliuchereva, 23, and Sergey Tanin, 27. None of them have made any single statement in favor of their government’s aggression, all the victim of anti-Russian reactionary sentiment sweeping the globe.

“We had discussions about it, and we had to evaluate the potential consequences on [the pianists], their families, and the Cliburn reputation,” says Jacques Marquis, Cliburn president and CEO. “We decided, first, not to ban Russian competition because they have nothing to do with these crazy policies of this tyrant. And most of them are not living in Russia. Many are already living here in U.S., Germany and [elsewhere in] Europe. Some of them have also been publicly against the war. It’s pretty dangerous in their case because they have family in Russia. This [Russia] is not a democracy. You have to be careful.”

The Cliburn, Marquis adds, is an artistic organization, not a political organization. Politics is not their job. “There’s a lot of people who can do that way better than we do.”

I’ll take his word on that.

Ultimately, the decision The Cliburn made was inspired through the one man himself, its founder and exemplar, Van Cliburn.

“Especially for us, we were founded by this man’s legacy who in 1958 won the Tchaikovsky in Moscow in the Cold War,” Marquis says. “Van Cliburn himself brought people together through music. He was never talking about politics, but music; the love of music and how it can bring people all over the world together. Yes, we were born from this inspiration that music can bring people from all boundaries together, and we should not ban or discriminate on these premises.”

In Moscow in 1958, it was assumed — fait accompli – that a Russian, most likely 29-year-old Lev Vlassenko, would win gold at the Tchaikovsky Competition. That was until Cliburn, then 23 years old and an honors graduate of Juilliard, where he studied with Rosina Lhevinne, took his turns. Cliburn’s career was in reality trending downward heading into the competition. He went to Moscow at the urging of Lhevinne, with hopes of reinvigorating a stalled career.

It worked better than anyone could have hoped, particularly considering the possibility that there would be dynamics not in his control. Could judges award not only a non-Russian gold, but an American? Americans were the guys on the opposite side of the spectrum of super powers, the bitter enemy in the post-WWII era who raced for nuclear supremacy and a vessel into space.

In a dictatorship, the dictator decides. One of the judges, pianist Emil Gilels, went to the country’s minister of culture, who went to the very top. Khrushchev said he would not intercede, telling his minister of culture that if Cliburn were the best, then so be it.

The most recent authority of the event is the account of author Nigel Cliff, author of Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story.

“The moment the young American with the shock of flaxen curls sat before the piano, a powerful new weapon exploded across the Soviet Union,” Cliff wrote. “That weapon was love: one man’s love for music, which ignited an impassioned love affair between him and an entire nation.”

A New York Times writer, who witnessed it all, wrote, “The Soviet public celebrated Cliburn not only for his artistry but for his nationality. Affection for him was a safe expression of affection for America.”

Khrushchev even fell in love, greeting the Texan and soon to be the adopted son of Fort Worth with the warmest embrace. “Why are you so tall?” the premier asked. “Because I’m from Texas,” Cliburn responded.

Cliburn traveled all across Soviet Union in the weeks after the competition giving concerts.

It was all the tentacles of circumstance, a love of music, that universal language that simply transcended the differences and even the hatred. Cliburn had no ambition to be any sort of éminence grise, though he found himself in the role of diplomat again in 1987 as a guest of the Reagan White House, asked to play for a Reagan-Gorbachev summit, which he did.

He returned to the states in 1958 to a hero’s welcome. As big as Elvis? Perhaps bigger. Did Elvis ever receive a ticker tape parade in New York City with 100,000 people lining the streets to get a look? No. Cliburn’s popularity wasn’t the only thing that soared like the coming Apollo missions. So, too, did his career. Sales of his recordings peaked, and demands for his time increased tenfold. His recording of Piano Concerto No. 1 was the first classical recording to sell more than a million copies.

“He loved people,” Marquis says of Cliburn, “and he loved sharing what he had with a large audience.”

Life for the winner of The Cliburn International Piano Competition will change instantly. That is the impact of the competition.

One of the 30 selected is Dmytro Choni, a native of Kyiv, born in Ukraine 28 years ago. He discovered the piano at 4. Choni earned a bachelor’s degree from the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine under the guiding hand of Yuri Kot. He moved to Austria in 2015 to study with Milana Chernyavska at the Kunstuniversität Graz.

Choni is a prizewinner at nearly 20 international competitions, including firsts in six of those.

One of his countrymen won The Cliburn, and recently Vadym Kholodenko, a native of Kyiv who was cheered on like a rock star during performances, won in 2013. (His life later encountered tragedy with the death of his two young children in Benbrook.)

“It’s an honor to be part of the competition,” says Choni, who has collaborated with renowned orchestras, such as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Phoenix Symphony, RTVE Symphony, Seongnam Philharmonic, Ukraine National Symphony, Liechtenstein Symphony, and Dominican Republic National Symphony Orchestras. “I was following The Cliburn for many years. I watched some documentaries about the past editions of the competition, and I’m very happy to take part myself this year.”

Choni’s preference is not to talk about the war or, at least, dwell on it. He has said in the past that his music has been a refuge from the turmoil in his mother country, though he told Fort Worth Magazine that “music can bring peace to people’s souls. It’s very valuable.”

“I let my experience be reflected in the music I perform, when appropriate,” he says. “Playing piano has always been a kind of therapy for me. Now it is especially relevant.”

The performance “reflects the inner world of a performer,” he goes on. It’s important to find a balance, but “personal emotions definitely enrich the music.”

Geniushene is a fourth-generation Muscovite, born on New Year’s Day 1991, just as the final countdown of days on the Soviet Union, a demise that would be complete by Christmas of that year.

“As a Russian-born and Russian-taught pianist, I was raised in adoration of the Tchaikovsky Competition, the very central event of the country,” she says. “I had a Soviet-printed book describing in details of the musical path of Van Cliburn and his further continuation of conquering the world as a top-ranked pianist.

“I was very lucky to study with a teacher who attended the very first auditions and heard Van Cliburn live at that competition. Relying on her words, it was an unforgettable experience.”

Not surprisingly, considering the role classical music plays in the culture, Russians have done well at The Cliburn. Vladimir Viardo (1973), Alexi Sultanov (1989), Olga Kern (2001), and Alexander Kobrin (2005) have all won gold at The Cliburn. Nikolai Petrov captured silver in the inaugural Cliburn in 1962, as have Yakov Kasman (1997), Valery Kuleshov (1993), and Maxim Philippov (2001). Mikhail Voskresensky won bronze in 1962.

Geniushene has been impacted significantly by the Russian invasion.

She has been living, she says, “between Russia and Lithuania for quite a long period of time.” Lithuania, which already had no love for Russians based on a history of occupation and Soviet shadow governments, is especially now anti-Russian.

Lithuania is Baltic Sea neighbor with Estonia, another former Soviet republic. Music played pivotal role in its eventual independence from the Soviets. Estonian national songs and hymns had been banned. However, as independence movements advanced, people began singing the songs publicly as an act of defiance. In time, the “Song of Estonia” festival that attracted 300,000 people to hear songs and independence leaders speak. The singing revolution ultimately won. Estonia gained her independence in 1991, the same time Ukraine did.

“We have made a decision to completely relocate,” she says. “The views in Lithuania are quite radical so I cannot make any public performances or have a proper job. Actually, I am still having some problems with practicing, but I am so glad to have at least an electric keyboard at my rented apartment. 

“The majority of my friends are outside Russia already. My family, however, is still there as they do not have any type of visas to move on. I wish they could be with me.”

Geniushene, a graduate of Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 2015, made her recital debut in 1998 in the small hall of the Berlin Philharmonic at 7 years old.

Throughout her blossoming career, she has performed in major venues around the globe, including the Town Hall in Leeds, National Concert Hall in Dublin, Museum of Arts in Tel Aviv, the Konzerthaus ‘Neue Welt,’ Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, and Sala Greppi in Milan. Being part of The Cliburn “family” is a “dream” opportunity, says Geniushene, who has a master’s with distinction and advanced diploma from the Royal Academy of Music in London.

“I came from a family of nonmusicians and had a lot of doubts on the subject of being a professional musician,” she says. She was instead planning to become a teacher. She works in the field of linguistics, she says. Geniushene has also been one of the elite Bicentenary Scholars at the Academy under Christopher Elton.

Cliburn officials don’t expect any activism at their sites with misguided protests against musicians. It’s not as if Putin or any other high-level official will be in town. Marquis says, however, that staff is prepared for any possibility. A conduct clause governs what competitors can do and say on stage.

Ultimately, the competition is about the artists. The entire experience is designed to ensure the musicians are put in the best position to generate their best music.

The musicians “have been practicing and working for this their entire life,” Marquis says. “This is the occasion. We don’t want to have them stuck in discussion. We want them to be in the best conditions, so they can play. That is the priority: to help young musicians.”

Says Choni: “I aim to share with the audience my personal view on the works I perform. I try to tell listeners a story and take them with me into the world of music for an adventure which will hopefully be unforgettable for both of us.”

The Sixteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition will take place from June 2 – 18 at Van Cliburn Concert Hall at TCU and Bass Performance Hall. You can visit cliburn.org for the full competition schedule.