Next day.
10 am rehearsal. We were pleased to know that the pieces we
had to learn in 36 hours were the Beethoven 4th, Rach 2, and
the Tchaikovsky (these being the works offered by the kids
who had been chosen as our three finalists). One of the
front-runners (Valkov) had produced the Prokofiev D-flat and
another (Fernandez Via) the Bartok 3rd, so we could have
conceivably been in very deep doodoo with only 7 1/2 hr of
rehearsals for three pieces. Rehearsal was about as good as
could be expected (not very).

=
7:30 pm rehearsal. The soloists unveiled - the two Korean
girls and the Macaunese teenager. The Tak girl was a bit of
a surprise, as though I found her playing quite musical,
her fingers wobbled a bit in the recital. Wow, was I wrong
about her technique. She played Rach 2 flawlessly. Esther
Park also showed another side of her musicianship - a bit
ferocious in the Tchaikovsky, which was by far not the best
rendition of it I've encountered, and in fact not the best
by an under-25 (that honor goes to Bobby Tumarkin, who gave
a very hot performance with the Pops in the late '60s or
early '70s when he was still a teen). Lio was secure
and not flashy in Beethoven 4; I don't think his performance
will win, but what do I know, my first two choices from the
recital stage didn't even place. What is in common among
them (besides their being Asian) is a very controlled
approach to the music.

Aside: the finalists were the youngest, the average (median,
mode, and one above the mean), and the second oldest.

=
Dress rehearsal just reinforced my impressions of the
performers. My choice: Lio, Tak, Park in that order.
My prediction of winners: Park, Lio, Tak in that order.

The second clarinetist (teacher of a buddy of mine in one
of my orchestras back east and now over the years a friend
in his own right) took me to a Thai restaurant on Dickson
St. called Bangkok Something, opposite Doe's Eat Place,
which I can't afford and which isn't open for lunch anyhow.
They agreed to make my food Thai hot, so that's a big plus.
Anyhow, I had vegetable-tofu soup, a Chineseish thing,
followed by pork with hot peppers, another Chineseish thing.
Pretty good but mild enough so I didn't eat the mound of
rather nicely done jasmine rice that comes with at lunch.
Mr. Umiker had the same soup and the "amazing chicken,"
which is standard peanut sauce with chicken and broccoli
floating in it; he got his medium, which was about the way
he liked it: he experimented, putting a few pinches of hot
pepper flakes in, and it became too hot for him - so the
kitchen had read him well. EL had wanted to call her kids
and arrange a meeting and had passed on lunch. Got her a
takeout order of shrimp (fried in too much batter) and
spring rolls (interesting: the wrapper made with sticky
rice flour, the filling ground pork and cabbage like a
dim sum filling).

Went back to the hall to do my e-mail and get a little work
done only to find the green room locked and nobody there to
open it up, so I returned to EL's car and had a little nap.

EL's daughter Wendy showed up, having driven with her b-i-l
from Elkhart, KS on their way to Greenville, SC; as they
were taking 412, Fayetteville was only a small detour, and
it'd been a while since they'd seen each other. EL wanted
to treat us to supper at Grub's, a local student and lowlife
dive that has cheap booze and good greasy grub. A hangout
for starving musicians and skinny twenty-year-olds but not
so good for those of us trying to watch our Calories or for
those with small children. I suggested an alternative place,
with windows and real food, but she really likes the burgers
at Grub's and was adamant. At length daughter Kristen and
son-i-l Barry showed up with the kids. I've got to hand
it to the place, they were ready with crayons, coloring
place mats, and chicken nugget dinners. The adults had an
assortment of sandwiches and drafts: my burger medium-rare
came medium-well but still juicy (it was made of a mix of
beef and spices and filler); the other sandwiches were I
guess fine; and pints of beer were just three smackers.

After a good visit, it was time for Wendy and John to get
back on the road and for us to get to the concert hall.

A small but enthusiastic audience, the creme de la mushroom
of Arkansas society, half-filled the 1200-seat hall.

Esther Park started off with a rip-roaring Tchaikovsky
concerto that was energetic, propulsive, rather savage, and
got a sizable standing O.

At the first intermission Lio, the Macau-Chinese kid who at
18 is a Curtis student, was pacing in the green room (there
was a dance performance in the little theater next door, so
the dressing rooms were much less generously allotted than
usual) shaking his head violently like an autistic child and
muttering to himself ominously. He's a fine musician with
huge promise, but I wonder about that intensity and where it
is eventually going to lead him.

His performance, committed, and musically and technically
outstanding, was nonetheless not a heaven-made match between
soloist and orchestra and Beethoven. We didn't help things by
coming in a bar early, en masse, in a crucial spot of the
third movement. Our conductor's face showed this horrified
look of, now this kid will lose thousands of bucks, and it's
all our fault. But in fact he never wavered, we got together
in a couple bars, and the audience probably never knew. He
got a medium-size standing O.

The concert ended with Tak playing the Rachmaninov, a fine
job that got by far the largest ovation of the evening.

We stuck around for the announcement of the winners but
first had to endure the acknowledgment and award of plaques
to maybe twenty people, from the mayor of Fayetteville to
the sponsors to the board to the dean of the music school.
Finally the prizes were announced: Lio, Tak, Park in that
order. Tak's Rachmaninov won the audience prize, naturally.

After which we headed out, myself heavily burdened with
luggage, musical instruments, and so on. As I was waiting
outside, the assistant concertmaster ran up to me: "I
believe that's my violin," he said. Turns out his violin
case is the same as the one I was using, and there had been
quite a hubbub until my stand partner realized that Ryan and
I had the same kind of violin case. I'd been tired and in a
hurry and had grabbed the wrong violin! Luckily Ramiro had
been awake enough to figure out what had happened. I was
thoroughly chastened and wondered for a moment whether I had
had a relapse.

===

We'd been supposed to play four I think concerts for the
schools (Adventures in Music), but the funding hadn't come
through, so I had two days to sit on my hands, visit with
EL's grandsons, and so on.