UPDATE 6-18-2022: The Cliburn Competition winners have been announced; find the list here.
---
UPDATE 6-12-2022: The field was narrowed to six finalists tonight; find the list of finalists here.
---
And then there were 12. The field of competitors in the Sixteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was cut to 12 semifinalists on June 6, meaning a dozen pianists are now halfway to the grand prize of $100,000, a gold medal, and an international career. Just two rounds to go.
The 12 semifinalists are:
- Dmytro Choni, Ukraine, 28
- Anna Geniushene, Russia, 31
- Masaya Kamei, Japan, 20
- Uladzislau Khandohi, Belarus, 20
- Honggi Kim, South Korea, 30
- Yunchan Lim, South Korea, 18
- Jinhyung Park, South Korea, 26
- Changyong Shin, South Korea, 28
- Ilya Shmukler, Russia, 27
- Clayton Stephenson, United States, 23
- Yutong Sun, China, 26
- Marcel Tadokoro, France/Japan, 28
Cliburn jury chair Marin Alsop made the announcement on stage at the Van Cliburn Concert Hall at TCU. It came after the conclusion of the two-day quarterfinals, in which 18 of the original 30 had played a 40-minute solo recital.
"On behalf of the jury, please know how deeply impressed we all are and what a difficult decision it was," she said.
The field is now dominated by South Korean candidates, with two of the initial six Russians remaining, and just one pianist from the United States.
American Clayton Stephenson has been an early Fort Worth audience favorite, as many remember him as a prize-winner in the inaugural Cliburn Junior Competition in 2015. Three other crowd favorites — Ilya Shmukler, Honggi Kim, and Yutong Sun — competed in the 2017 Cliburn International Competition.
And Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni has received warm and generous response from the audience inside the hall each time he's taken the stage. (One can't help but notice the documentary film crew's interest in him, too.)
Notably, Russian Anna Geniushene is the only remaining woman in the competition.
The semifinals will run June 8-12 at Bass Performance Hall. All 12 competitors will compete in two phases:
1. A 60-minute solo recital
2. A Mozart concerto (selected from a list), performed with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under conductor Nicholas McGegan.
Click on the contestants' names in the bulleted list, above, to find out what each is playing in the next round.
The semifinal round performance schedule is here. (There are no competition performances on Tuesday, June 7.)
Six finalists will be announced at the conclusion of play Sunday, June 12
Tickets are available here, and each performance will be webcast for free here.
Clayton Stephenson, 23, is the only remaining American in the competition and an audience favorite.
