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JULY 30, 2002--Jung Lim Kim, a 17-year-old pianist from Seoul, Korea, is the winner of the eighth annual Oberlin International Piano Competition and Festival. The final round of the competition for pianists age 13 through 18 was held in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music on Saturday, July 27, 2002, and broadcast live on WCLV 104.9 FM, Cleveland’s classical music radio station. Miss Kim, a student at the Seoul Art High School, received $4,000 for her first-prize winning performances of the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata, Op. 111, No. 32; the first movement of Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata, Op. 82, No. 6; and Franz Liszt’s Après une lecture de Dante.
Second prize and $1,500 went to Jeannette Fang, 17, of Bridgewater, New Jersey. Fang, a student of Veda Kaplinsky’s at Juilliard’s Pre-College Division, performed David Del Tredici’s Virtuoso Alice; the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata, Op. 53 ("Waldstein"); Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words , Op. 62, No. 1, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39, No. 6.
Martin Leung, 15, of Irvine, California, won third prize and $500 for his performance of the first and second movements of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 6 in F, Op. 10, No. 2; the first, third, and fourth movements of Bèla Bartók’s Suite, Op. 14; and the "Gondoliers" and "Tarantella" from Liszt’s Venezia e Napoli, Supplément to Annés de Pélerinage, Book II . Mr. Leung studies with Myong-joo Lee and Ory Shihor.
Shing Ming Liao and Ping Feng, both of Taiwan, were the remaining finalists in the competition. Each was asked to perform 30 minutes from his or her repertoire, and was told which pieces to play moments before walking out on stage.
Judges for the finals round were Joseph Schwartz of the United States, emeritus professor of piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music; Monique Duphil of France and the United States, professor of pianoforte at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music; noted piano pedagogue John Weems of the United States; Antonio Pompa-Baldi of Italy, silver medal winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; and Li MingQiang of China, a past juror in such major international competitions as the Van Cliburn, the Tchaikovsky, and the Rubinstein competitions.
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865, became part of Oberlin College in 1867. It is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States, and the only major music school in the country linked with a preeminent college of arts and sciences. The Oberlin Conservatory’s unmatched facilities include 199 Steinway pianos (there are more Steinways under one roof at Oberlin than anywhere – other than the Steinway factory), 150 practice rooms, and a music library equal to that of any major university. Oberlin offers intensive professional training to aspiring musicians; its students and alumni have won prizes in numerous international piano competitions, including the Van Cliburn, the Fryderyk Chopin, the Queen Elisabeth, the Arthur Rubinstein, the Walter W. Naumburg, the University of Maryland, the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition, and the Concorsco Pianis-Otico Internazionale F. Busoni Competition.
Notable pianists who graduated from Oberlin include concert and recording artist and Rubenstein Competition winner Gregory Allen; Jeremy Denk, a National Public Radio Young Artist-in-Residence; international recording and concert artist and Peabody Conservatory of Music faculty member Marian Hahn; and the legendary Natalie Hinderas, one of the first African-American women to perform as a soloist with a major symphony orchestra (The Philadelphia Orchestra).
Media Contact: Marci Janas
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