PLEASE READ ALL THE RULES CAREFULLY. There are important changes for 2025 Chopin NW Festival Piano Competition.
ONLINE REGISTRATION BEGINS DECEMBER 1ST, 2024.
American pianist Theresa Bogard is a dynamic, versatile performer dedicated to expanding the canon of traditional piano repertoire. Her early career focused on performances of music by women composers, and she continues to include works by other lesser known composers in her varied programs. As a recipient of a coveted Fulbright grant, Bogard was able to explore her interest in historical performance practice and fortepiano studying at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague in the Netherlands. That same year she was a top-prize winner in the International Mozart Fortepiano Competition in Bruges, Belgium. A world traveler with a passion for other cultures, Bogard has performed on five continents in Belgium, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Taiwan, Singapore, and throughout the United States. Her extensive discography includes a wide variety of recordings ranging from solo piano to chamber music collaborations, from music of living composers to her specialty in fortepiano and historical performance practice. She has served on the faculty of the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy and the Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival in Germany and has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and at the Ravinia Steans Institute with cellist Misha Quint. Since her first concert tour in Brazil in 2007, she has become obsessed with the music of Brazilian composers. Returning to Brazil whenever possible, she has given masterclasses and performances at universities in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Cuiaba, Curitiba, Florianopolis, Goiania and Porto Alegre. In 2018, she toured five cities in Brazil with the Trio das Nações and will return to Brazil in 2022 for a recording of works for flute and piano by Brazilian composers.
Internationally known as a pedagogue, she has been honored with numerous teaching awards. She attracts students from around the world as professor of piano at the University of Wyoming, where she also served as chair of the music department from 2010 to 2016. In 2008, she was chosen as the Wyoming Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation. Her students have distinguished themselves in numerous piano competitions and been accepted into the top graduate and undergraduate programs in the country including: The Julliard School, Eastman School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Manhattan School of Music and Peabody Conservatory of Music among others. She has also served as an adjudicator at numerous regional, national and international piano competitions. Dr. Bogard is a Steinway Artist.
Dr. Elizabeth Schumann has a diverse career portfolio of projects, recordings, and performances which have brought her all over the world as recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist. The Washington Post noted her playing as “deft, relentless, and devastatingly good—the sort of performance you experience not so much with your ears as your solar plexus.”
The first place winner of both the Bösendorfer International Piano Competition and the Pacific International Piano Competition, Elizabeth has won over 25 prizes and awards in other major national and international competitions, including the Cleveland International Piano Competition and the Hilton Head International Piano Competition. Elizabeth was honored with the prestigious Gilmore Young Artists Award, and was highlighted in a PBS Television documentary on the Gilmore Festival.
She has performed in such venues as the Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Bösendorfer Saal, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, and Montreal’s Place des Arts. She was featured at the Cannes Film Festival, the Gilmore Festival, Australia’s Huntington Festival, the Ravinia “Rising Stars” Series, and National Public Radio's “Performance Today”, and her recitals have been broadcast live on public radio and television in cities around the world, including Washington D.C., New York, Sydney, Cleveland, Montréal, Dallas, and Chicago. Elizabeth also gave the world premiere performance of Carl Vine's Sonata No. 3, which the composer dedicated to her.
As a dedicated chamber musician and proponent of community engagement, Elizabeth is a core member of the Ives Collective, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, and Ensemble San Francisco, a piano quartet dedicated to inspiring a more inclusive world. Elizabeth also conceived and created Son et Lumiére: an ongoing performance series that transforms outdoor urban spaces with live music accompanied by large scale video projections to reach beyond the concert hall and bring music into accessible public spaces. The goal of the series is to allow audiences to meet music on their own terms and experience its power without barriers of price or pretense.
Elizabeth and her sister, Sonya Schumann, formed the Schumann Duo to engage diverse audiences with innovative combinations of piano music, theater, literature, art, and technology. The Schumann Duo’s tours of the US, Canada, and Australia were acclaimed by critics and audiences alike. In response to declining funding for arts education in the United States, Elizabeth devised and directed Piano Carnival, a Schumann Duo project to introduce free, high quality classical concert music to children in areas without arts education. Over 20,000 copies of Piano Carnival have been distributed for free, and multimedia lesson plans and the Piano Carnival iPad and iPhone applications are available free online.
Elizabeth has carried on the pedagogical tradition of her teacher, Sergei Babayan, as faculty at Summer and Winter Performing Arts with Juilliard, Itzhak Perlman’s Perlman Music Program, and the Crowden Chamber Music Workshop. She is the director of the Schumann Studio, a recording space in San Francisco designed to provide a personal individually tailored recording experience for classical musicians.
Ernest Barretta was born in McKeesport, Pa., and was a winner of the Pittsburgh Concert Society Young Artists Competition and the Pittsburgh Musician's Club Competition. Among his prizes are the Rudolph Serkin Prize (Oberlin), Strine Award (University of Arts), and Zierler Award (Peabody). He has had extensive performance experience as a soloist and chamber musician in the U.S. and abroad. Among his recent appearances are performances with the National Gallery Orchestra, the Mid-Atlantic Symphony, and the St. Petersburg Symphony. He has recorded as solo artist and with chamber groups on the MRC and Musician's Showcase labels. He is also active as a composer and conductor in the Baltimore area. He joined the Juilliard Pre-College faculty in 2001 and was formerly a member of the faculty at Peabody Conservatory and Towson University (Maryland). He holds a BM from Oberlin Conservatory, a MM from University of Arts, and a DMA from Peabody Conservatory. He had early studies in piano, organ, and composition in the Pittsburgh area, and later studies with Sanford Margolis, Jonathan Shames, and Yoheved Kaplinsky.
Grace Liu is a Taiwanese-American pianist who performs as a soloist and collaborative pianist in the U.S. and Taiwan, “impressing [audiences] with her finesse and sensitivity” (Orange County Register). She is the recipient of the Pauline Favin Memorial Award in Piano and the Clara Ascherfel Accompanying Award at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She was also a finalist and recitalist at the Wonderlic Piano Competition and Schlern International Music Competition. As concerto soloist, she has also featured with the UC Irvine Symphony as the winner of the concerto competition.
Liu has been invited to participate in numerous international music festivals, including the Banff Piano Masterclass (Canada), Bowdoin International Music Festival (ME), Beethoven Institute (NY), and Schlern International Music Festival (Italy). She has also participated in master classes taught by Leon Fleisher, Menahem Pressler, Boris Berman, John Perry, Stephen Hough, as well as the Jupiter and Takacs Quartets.
A dedicated teacher, Liu currently holds faculty positions at Peabody Preparatory, St. James School, and the Park School of Baltimore, and she maintains a private studio in Baltimore.
Liu earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Peabody Institute, where she also received her Master of Music degree in piano performance. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree at University of California, Irvine. Her major teachers include Alexander Shtarkman, Lorna Griffitt, Rose Hsin-I Chen, and Daniel Hanley.
The Northwest Council of the Chopin Foundation of the United States, an all-volunteer, 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization will continue the tradition of encouraging talented young American pianists to study and perform classical music, especially highlighting the music of Chopin. We will primarily focus on the Seattle competition and furthering young local talent. The NW Chopin Foundation holds a yearly competition featuring the finest youth talent in Washington state. Each succeeding year, the Festival has grown to becoming one of the region's largest and well-known piano competitions. The very first meeting of The Northwest Chapter of the Chopin Foundation was held September 20, 2001 at the Women's University Club in Seattle, Washington. President Dr. Steven Lagerberg opened a meeting with eight other Chopin enthusiasts in attendance. Steven presented his vision for the Chopin Foundation which was, very simply, to showcase Chopin and his beautiful music.
CHOPIN FOUNDATION OF THE UNITED STATES, NORTHWEST COUNCIL
Dr. Hanna Cyba, President
Dr. Adam Aleksander, Immediate Past President
Dr. Yelena Balabanova, Vice-President
Dr. Steven Lagerberg, Founder
Judy Baker, Founder, Artistic Co-Director, Board Member
Cathy Carpenter, Secretary, Board Member
Dr. Mary Chandler, Treasurer, Co-Artistic Director
Allan Park, Past President, Board Member, Registrar
Yunbo Cassady, Board Member
Conney Vernall, Board Member
Dr. Nino Merabishvili, Board Member
Dr. Vladimir Balabanov, Board Member
Risa Jun, Board Member
Christopher Moorhead, Webmaster
Alison Bell, Past President
Helen Belvin, Honorary Past President
The Origins of Chopin’s Melancholy
In the vibrant tapestry of musical history few figures have left such an indelible impression as the renowned composer and pianist, Frédéric Chopin. Employing a remarkable amalgamation of his Polish heritage combined with an artistically creative brilliance, it appears that he fashioned many of his compositions out of intricately entwined memories from his remarkable childhood. Like a painter shaping an assortment of colorful images from a broad palette, Chopin used his piano to skillfully transform his recollections into often-melancholic melodies that continue to captivate audiences to this day. Although just how he accomplished that remains largely shrouded by the enigma of musical genius, are there clues from his life that can shed light on the sources of his inspiration?
Some of those indicators might be traced to his letters to his friends. For example, “Oh, how miserable it is to have no one to share sorrows and joys, and, when your heart is really heavy, to have no soul to whom you can pour out your woes.” Or this, “It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to…I tell the piano the things I used to tell you.” These are the laments of a lonely man, an individual deprived of close companionship. Chopin’s music was recurrently imbued with this sense of sadness, a longing for a bygone era along with the reflections of his own bittersweet memories. A sad and lonely person often will turn to nostalgia in an attempt to recreate the past, but was Chopin really this lonely and if so, why?
Of all of Chopin’s music his Nocturnes express the greatest manifestations of melancholy and nostalgia. He wrote his first one – Opus 72, No. 1 in E minor - shortly after the tragic death of his artistically talented sister, Emilia. She had died suddenly and unexpectedly in their family’s home from a massive pulmonary hemorrhage at the age of fifteen. Then only seventeen, Chopin was devastated; he and Emilia had always been very close. This first nocturne is sadness incarnate.
Chopin’s next foray into writing in this genre came in 1830, mere months following his reluctant departure from his beloved Poland for a highly uncertain future in Paris. Soon after arriving in the City of Light the twenty-year old Chopin became extremely homesick and lonely, terribly missing his friends and family, yet he swiftly rendered these feelings into what would become one of his most popular masterpieces, the Nocturne in E flat major, Opus 9, No. 2.
After his engagement to Maria Wodzinska was over-ruled by her aristocratic parents in 1836, Chopin once again entered a deep funk, wrapping a bundle of her letters together and calling them “My sorrow” (“Moja bieda.”) Out of this misery he created the Nocturnes of Opus 27, containing some of the most melancholically beautiful works he would ever compose. He had translated his feelings of loss and loneliness into marvelous works of art. He would never forget the terrible tragedy of the Russian occupation of Poland nor would he ever separate his personal sorrows from the fate of his beloved homeland. For the rest of his life Chopin would continue to steep his works in his deep emotional well of sorrow.
Chopin’s nostalgia, this melancholic sentimentality for the past, was prompted by his feelings of loneliness, disconnectedness or meaninglessness. Perhaps by revisiting his past he gained much-needed context, perspective and direction. Might it be possible to think that Chopin’s obsessive dwelling on the past, while directing him to create the musical masterpieces the world still enjoys, actually allowed him to find solace and come to terms with his sorrows by becoming psychologically cathartic, even therapeutic?
Steven Lagerberg November, 2024 Paris
ARCHIVES:
Sophisticated Restraint
The Scent of the Lily
The Piano Capitol of the World
Chopin in the Time of Cholera and COVID
Recognition
What Motivated Chopin
An Educated Guess
A Personal Challenge
Emotional Music
The Long Suffering
Of Hands and Heart
Why Do We Have a Chopin Festival
A Fateful Journey
Chopin's Pianos
What's Not to Like About Chopin's Music
To Compete or Not Compete
Dr. Steven Lagerberg is retired as a practicing physician from Kaiser Permanente and is the founder of the NW Council of the Chopin Foundation. Steven is the author of: Chopin's Heart: The Quest to Identify the Mysterious Illness of the World's Most Beloved Composer and Essays on Chopin.
Copyright 2020-21. Steven Lagerberg. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Support The Chopin Foundation of the United States
The Northwest Council of the Chopin Foundation of the United States, an all-volunteer, 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization, will continue the tradition of encouraging talented young American pianists to study and perform classical music, especially highlighting the music of Chopin. Your donation is tax deductible and we would like to express our sincerest appreciation for your donation. PLEASE LAND MAIL your donation to:
Northwest Chopin Festival
4957 Lakemont Blvd. SE
Suite C-4, #259
Bellevue, WA 98006