Cliburn 2009: May 22 - June 7
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closeThursday, Jun. 25, 2009
Di Wu is glad to have made it through the Cliburn finals but now wants to live up to the promise the judges saw in her
Di Wu — happy to have survived the Cliburn finals — now wants to live up to the promise the judges saw in her
By TIM MADIGAN
dfw.com
When last we saw her, backstage at Bass Hall on the afternoon of June 7, Chinese pianist Di Wu seemed to waver between shock and ecstasy. She had just finished Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the final performance of the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. After six concerts and nearly three weeks of pressure, she had survived, hugging conductor James Conlon and anyone else within reach.
"I can’t believe I finished the Cliburn," she said over and over at the time.
More than finished, actually. Wu, a critical favorite in the nail-bitingly close competition, didn’t receive a medal at this year’s Cliburn. Those went to Japan’s Nobuyuki Tsujii and Haochen Zhang of China, who shared the gold, and silver medalist Yeol Eum Son of Korea.
But as one of six finalists, Wu has already signed on for several concerts across the nation as part of the Cliburn Foundation’s management. One of those takes place July 5, when Wu returns to Texas to reprise Rachmaninoff’s Third with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. That concert, however, will take place under much less stressful and grueling conditions, as the last performance in the Concerts in the Garden series.
In a recent conversation from New York, where the 24-year-old is a graduate student at the Juilliard School, Wu spoke of her coming appearance in Fort Worth and her reflections on what she called the Cliburn "boot camp."
Fort Worth must feel like home to you by now.
It feels like I haven’t really left yet. I was hoping I was going to come back at some point, but it’s so soon. I’m definitely going to enjoy it. I’ve never done that before [played outdoors]. With an open venue you don’t have the feedback. The sound just goes out. It’s a different dynamic and will be very different in terms of the sound and how you feel. It will be interesting. We’ll see.
Your relief after your last performance in the Cliburn was pretty obvious. How do you feel about the competition experience now?
I think the Cliburn is a boot camp. It was so much repertoire and so much work. I’m glad I did it. I’m glad it’s over now. The fact that you played six concerts in a row of different repertoire; the fact that you can get through that is good mental practice. You had to bring all those pieces up to a level you normally wouldn’t have to. That’s definitely something that will be very beneficial for the future. Now I know these pieces inside and out. Also, to play at such a high level against all those other competitors. To get through all of that and survive and not have a huge breakdown, my stress tolerance level just jumped by 100 percent.
During the competition, you seemed pretty pleased with your performances. Not all of the competitors felt that way.
I said this and kept saying it: I did not come to win. I went in to play music, at least I tried to, and I’m glad that at the end of the day I can tell myself that every time I went on stage I did not perform for the jury or for the competition. That was more important to me than anything else. I set a personal goal, and it was more important to accomplish that than other things. Those other things I could not control. I kept on the same route, and that’s all I care. I admit I did actually start to think about a medal after the finalists were announced: "There are only six now." But the more you think about those things, the less you think about the music.
The night that the medalists were announced, you did seem pretty disappointed that you weren’t one of them.
I was the last person to play, and I hadn’t had time to recover from the high of performing. The announcement came at a time when I was still emotional. I just needed a little time to recover and get ahold of what actually happened. I’m not disappointed now. I’ve said this all along: When you get to number six, it’s not who is better, it’s a matter of taste, who prefers what. All six of us are excellent pianists, but we’re all different. Yes, I came so close, but also I came so far. How do you look at the glass? Is it half full or half empty? My goal was the pass the first round and I did that. [Wu had been eliminated after the Cliburn’s first round four years earlier.] You can always look at what you could have gotten, instead of appreciating the experiences you did have.
From that point of view I’m very happy about it. I played with amazing musicians, James Conlon and the Takács [Quartet]. Those are people you don’t regularly get to work with. OK, I didn’t get a medal, but who cares? The Cliburn Foundation is taking excellent care of all six of us.
What will being a Cliburn finalist mean for your career?
You carry the responsibility of being one of the final six and living up to that reputation, living up to people’s expectations of you. That’s the harder part of a career. That’s a more prolonged period of time, more than just 2 1/2 weeks. People will watch and might say, 'Why did you put her into the finals?’ It’s important for me to keep developing, improving my playing, learning different music and keep myself from getting burned out. Yes, the Cliburn will help me, but it’s up for me to keep my career going. It’s up to me to keep being the musician that those jurors saw in me. That’s a big responsibility. That’s a very big responsibility.
Concerts in the Garden
8 p.m. July 5 (Gates open at 6:30 p.m.)
Fort Worth Botanic Garden
$15-$45
817-665-6000; www.fwsymphony.org
TIM MADIGAN, 817-390-7544
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