Professor Erik T. Tawaststjerna has been invited to sit on the jury of the International Van Cliburn Piano Competition, United States. The Van Cliburn is one of the world’s most prestigious piano competitions. The chairman of the jury is conductor Leonard Slatkin. Professor is the chairman of the competition committee of the International Maj Lind Piano Competition in Helsinki, Finland.
The other members of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition jury are Arnaldo Cohen (Brazil), Jean-Philippe Collard (France), Christopher Elton (United Kingdom), Marc-André Hamelin (Canada), Joseph Kalichstein (Israel/United States), Mari Kodama (Japan), Anne-Marie McDermott (United States) and Alexander Toradze (United States/Georgia). The first prize is worth $50 000. The Fifteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition will be held on May 25 – June 6, 2017 in Fort Worth, Texas.
Erik T. Tawaststjerna won the second prize at the Maj Lind piano competition in Helsinki in 1968 and has since given concerts around the world, including the first Finnish performance of Leonard Bernstein’s “Age of Anxiety” in 1981. He has made numerous recordings, among them a series of eight recordings of the complete piano music of Jean Sibelius on the BIS label. He began his musical education in Helsinki, took private lessons in Moscow, and graduated from the Vienna Music Academy, where he studied with Dieter Weber, as well as from The Juilliard School, where his teacher was Sascha Gorodnitzki. He also holds a doctorate from New York University, where he studied under the guidance of Eugene List. Mr. Tawaststjerna has taught since 1982 at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where he was appointed full professor of piano in 1986. He was named “Professor of the Year” in 2006 by the Finnish Professors’ League. Mr. Tawaststjerna has served on the juries of international piano competitions in London, Vienna, New York, St. Petersburg, Dublin, and Barcelona, among other cities, and has given master classes at, among other places, the Guildhall School of Music in London, University of the Arts in Berlin, Tokyo College of Music, and at the Vienna University for Music.
Mars 22, 2017
