Here’s something to look forward to in 2013. The Van Cliburn Foundation just announced the new guest artists for the upcoming Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The legendary conductor Leonard Slatkin, just appointed conductor of the Orchestre National de Lyon, will conduct the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra during the finals. (What a surprise, he’s in Denton this weekend to work out with the Lone Star Wind Orchestra.) The tasteful, polished, Princeton University-based Brentano String Quartet will perform with the pianists during the chamber music round. With the Cliburn Foundation under new management for this cycle, it’s natural that new performing blood would come in as well. Let’s see how they do.
Here’s Slatkin conducting the opening of Gershwin’s Concerto in F, with Marc-André Hamelin as soloist.
And here’s the Brentano players performing the start of Mendelssohn’s Sixth String Quartet:
