Cliburn Competition: Preliminary Recital 7

Photos by Brandon Wade and Ralph Lauer

—Wayne Lee Gay

May 23, 2025: American Evren Ozel, 26, opened Friday's Preliminary round recitals with an impressively controlled but reasonably expressive exploration of Bach's Partita No. 5 in G. No surprises in this suite of nine baroque dance movements, highlighted with a lively Courante, an introspective Sarabande, and a showy Gigue to close. After the obligatory performance of Montero's "Rachtime," Ozel launched Rachmaninoff's Variations on a Theme of Corelli, a work demanding a wide range of expression and technique, which Ozel handled neatly, from the occasional pianistic lightning bolts to the wonderful moments of serenity.

South Korean Sung Ho Yoo, 28, carefully balanced his program, opening in the classical era with Haydn's Andante and Variations in F minor on one side, and closing with the expansive romanticism of Rachmaninoff's Second Sonata (1931 version) on the other, with two shorter twenty-first century works between. In terms of technique, Yoo delivered clarity in the classical-era scales and trills of the Haydn, while building a convincing momentum toward an almost Beethovenian climax. He delivered Montero's "Rachtime" with a Chopinesque flair, and followed up with the extremely dense and demanding Etude No. 2 ("Sequenzen") of contemporary Korean composer Unsuk Chin. Yoo's momentum flagged slightly in earlier portions of Rachmaninoff's Second Sonata, particularly in the start of the second movement, but returned full force in the final movement, winning enthusiastic audience response. 

South Korea’s Chaeyoung Park, 27, turned to an all-Russian program (except for the Montero "Rachtime") featuring Preludes of Rachmaninoff and the finger-killing Eighth Sonata of Prokofiev. She paired two Preludes from Rachmaninoff's Opus 32 (nos. 5 and 12), featuring a melody floating above an arpeggiated accompaniment in the first piece, and below in the second one; a pronounced rubato characterized both. Her approach to Rachmaninoff seeped over into her performance of "Rachtime," and worked quite well there. Prokofiev's Eighth Sonata proved a more daunting challenge: while Park's emotional command of the array of moods and contrasting ideas in this monumental was complete—the lyrical second movement was particularly successful—she showed signs of fatigue in the final section.