FORT WORTH -- In a classical music world that loves intrigue, the Cliburn Foundation has provided plenty of recent fodder. A period of uncharacteristic turnover at the Cliburn was punctuated last summer by the resignation of foundation President David Chambless Worters. He had been on the job six months.
But as a rocky 2011 comes to a close, and with the next Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in two years, the Fort Worth foundation seems to have found its footing."The Cliburn is such a solid and strong foundation, it can overcome any kind of shake-up," said Veda Kaplinsky, head of the piano department at the Juilliard School in New York. She said the product -- the competition -- "is completely unscathed and the product continues to grow because it has so much merit."Since Worters' resignation, Cliburn news has been almost uniformly positive. This fall, the foundation more the doubled the prize money for the 2013 champion, from $20,000 to $50,000. More recently, the gold medal winners from 2009, Nobuyuki Tsujii and Haochen Zhang, both signed contracts with artistic management firms, a pivotal step in the careers of the two standardbearers. Jump-starting careers of the world's most talented young pianists is the competition's main mission.A highly regarded jury is in place for 2013, which will also feature one of the nation's most recognized conductors, Leonard Slatkin, and the critically acclaimed Brentano String Quartet."We made it through the summer, I think, in pretty good shape," said Alann Sampson, the Cliburn's interim president and CEO. "We have a great staff. You see what has been accomplished in spite of it all. And they are all new. They didn't go through the last competition."Turnover at the topThe turnover generated most of the whispers in the piano world. Richard Rodzinski, who led the Cliburn for 23 years, resigned in 2009 to take an executive position with the Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia. Much of the Cliburn staff that was responsible for artist management and marketing followed Rodzinski out the door.Sampson, the former board chairwoman who began as a Cliburn volunteer in 1962, took over as interim president until she turned the leadership over to Worters.His quick resignation shocked many in the piano world. Worters, previously an executive with the North Carolina Symphony, said he "didn't have sufficient passion for this. The Cliburn deserves someone who does."There was also widespread speculation that Worters' departure was prompted, at least in part, by Sampson's overinvolvement, said Kaplinsky, a Cliburn juror in several competitions"That could not be further from the truth," Kaplinsky said. She said that from Day One, Worters insisted on Sampson removing herself, and "there was no contact. It wasn't her. She didn't do anything to make him fail, or aggravate things."Kaplinsky said Worters "came extremely highly recommended" and added: "Everything indicated he was very enthusiastic. To their credit, they [the Cliburn Foundation] didn't let it go very long. They recognized very quickly that this was a bad fit. I don't know that he or the Cliburn had any way of knowing this was the wrong job for him."The Cliburn board immediately turned again to Sampson in the interim."There was no question of where my heart was," Sampson said recently. "But my first question to [board President Carla Kemp Thompson] was 'What would the perceptions be?' I would not do anything that would put a question mark or fog over the Cliburn brand."Kaplinsky said most felt that the opposite was true."Even though she's not a musician, and not a professional, she's been involved with this organization for so long, she knows more about it than any professional coming in," Kaplinsky said. "She also knows what she doesn't know so she'll ask for help."The foundation now is in no hurry to find Worters' permanent replacement."I've been asked to stay on through the [2013] competition," Sampson said. "The search will probably begin sometime in 2012. It would be wonderful if a new person would be hired before the competition and we would do it together."The competitionIn the meantime, Sampson and her staff continue to tweak the quadrennial competition that for five decades has attracted the finest young pianists from around the world. (The foundation celebrates its 50th anniversary next year.) In 2013, for example, the competitors will perform two solo recitals in the preliminary round, not one as in the past.Sampson said the Cliburn will also eliminate the practice of awarding multiple gold medals, as was the case in 2009. The finalists will perform two concertos each with Slatkin and the Fort Worth Symphony."I've worked with Van [Cliburn] so many times over the long haul, and I have great respect for the competition," Slatkin, who currently conducts the Detroit Symphony, said recently. "It's easily one of the two or three most respected piano competitions in the world. Anyone who wins, or finished second or third, always puts the Cliburn in the first two or three sentences of their bio, which attests how important it is in the music world."Despite recent struggles, that remains the case, Kaplinsky said."The truth is there was a really rocky year in the Cliburn from the time that Richard [Rodzinski] left to the time that David left," Kaplinsky said. "But ever since Alann came back, the preparations for the new competition have been about as great as they can be. And the students, the young people applying for the competition, they don't care who is running the organization. They just care who the jury is."Tim Madigan, 817-390-7544Twitter: @tsmadiganHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
