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FORT WORTH -- Six months after taking the job, David Chambless Worters announced his resignation Friday as president and chief executive of the Van Cliburn Foundation.
"I've found that I don't have sufficient passion for this," he said. "The Cliburn deserves someone who does."
The departure of Worters, who joined the Cliburn in December after leading the North Carolina Symphony, stunned piano observers nationwide. His resignation will also likely rekindle questions about the Fort Worth foundation, which has had uncharacteristic turnover in recent years. The Cliburn's quadrennial piano competition for young artists, considered to be the world's best, will take place in two years.
In a statement, Carla Kemp Thompson, the Cliburn's board chairwoman, said an interim president will be named until a replacement can be found. She said Worters' departure was decided six weeks ago.
"It just kind of came out in conversation between the two of us that he was prepared to make a change," Thompson said, adding that she was not completely surprised. "The things that didn't surprise me were the things we had discovered together were not a good fit, things that were not a good fit stylistically."
Worters presided over the Cliburn amateur competition last week, which came off in Fort Worth without a hitch.
"Everything worked very well," said Veda Kaplinsky, head of the piano department at the Juilliard School in New York and a juror at numerous Cliburn competitions, including the recent amateur. "It was very cordial and very pleasant. I didn't feel anything was wrong. This comes as a complete shock to me."
Worters succeeded Richard Rodzinski, who ran the Cliburn for 23 years and secured its place among the world's premiere piano competitions. After his departure, several other members of the foundation left under various circumstances.
"This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because this position has not been vacant in my professional lifetime," Worters said when he was hired after a yearlong search.
On Friday, Worters said his resignation had nothing to do with the Cliburn board and did not signal any deeper problems in the organization.
"I have nothing but the strongest admiration for the Cliburn organization and its board," he said. "I guess the truth is I've got a lot of soul-searching to do."
Since the Cliburn competition's inception in the 1960s, its medal has become one of the world's most coveted for outstanding young pianists, largely because scores of concert dates are arranged for its laureates after a competition. Joan Braun, who has engaged Cliburn pianists for several years at the University of Colorado, was among those surprised by Friday's announcement.
"It's concerning," she said. "It's been a consistent pattern of upheaval and change. The Cliburn is enormous in terms of its importance. I wouldn't be looking with doom and gloom at the future of our relationship, but when you've got upheaval going on, there is a challenge there somewhere."
But Kaplinsky said Worters' departure is not likely to matter to the young pianists honing repertoires for the 2013 competition.
"The Cliburn is bigger than any of its executives," she said. "I don't know how many upheavals it can survive, but it will survive this one. People are not going to stop coming. But they have to find the right person this time, and obviously he was not."
Tim Madigan, 817-390-7544
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