Cliburn favorite Alessandro Deljavan returns to Fort Worth
With its generous prize of concert bookings and artist management, the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition brings prestige, money, travel opportunities and — most importantly — an instant career as a concert pianist to those who make it to the final round of the competition.
But for the pianists who exit Bass Hall out the front door with the rest of the audience the night the final six are announced, life goes on as usual, says two-time Cliburn semifinalist Alessandro Deljavan.
“The semifinal round, it’s not changing your life,” says Deljavan, an Italian pianist who also won jury discretionary awards in the 2009 and 2013 competitions. “The next 30 days after the competition, many people wrote me. There was a big effect. Now, life is the same.”
That means that Deljavan, 27, supports himself by teaching in his native Italy.
“I don’t have any concerts as a soloist [in Italy]. They prefer people from other countries,” he says. “I don’t think I live in the right time, the right epoch. Maybe I should have lived in the early 20th century, the 1920s and 1930s.”
But while he may not have many concerts booked in present-day Italy, Deljavan has returned to North Texas to perform a few times in the past year and a half. Most notably, he played a Rachmaninoff concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra during its Russian Festival last summer in a performance that saw a rousing ovation from a packed house in Bass Hall and earned critical acclaim.
On Saturday, the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth presents Deljavan in a concert called “Masters of Form and Color” at the Modern Art Museum. He will be featured, along with a violin, viola and cello, on two Brahms sonatas and a Dvorak piano quartet.
During his current visit to the United States, Deljavan has performed in Dallas and San Antonio, and will give a solo recital in Chicago next week. In the months since the Cliburn, he also has spent much time in a recording studio; he and Italian violinist Daniela Cammarano (who play together as the Duo Cammarano-Deljavan) have released CDs of the violin sonatas of Johannes Brahms and Anton Rubinstein.
Even though he would still be eligible for the next Cliburn in 2017, he won’t be back, he says — at least not as a competitor.
“I’m fine with [the Cliburn results]. Two minutes after the elimination, I was shocked, because I worked so hard,” he says. “But I can tell you that, the next time, I will not be a Cliburn competitor. I would like to come back and sit on the jury.”
Deljavan emerged as a crowd favorite during the 2013 Cliburn. He also earned the admiration of the film crew making the competition documentary Virtuosity, which premiered Nov. 5 at Bass Hall. Deljavan, with his funny one-liners and poignant interviews about not making the finals, gets more screen time in the 85-minute film than most pianists who advanced further in the competition.
“I understood that the public was with me [during the Cliburn]. It was probably because I was the only competitor who was coming again. They probably remembered me. And, of course, I know that I am a bit of a clown, and that my English is very bad,” says Deljavan, who is correct about his outgoing, fun-loving personality, and wrong about his less-than-perfect, but still charming, command of the language.
Attention in the film is given not only to his elegant playing but to the highly expressive faces he makes while playing.
“I know that there is this contact between my fingers and my face that I cannot control,” says Deljavan, whose face-making is often the subject of critics’ reviews. “If I had to work on controlling my face, I couldn’t play as well.”
And, from his point of view, he does not think he is as extreme as his reputation suggests.
“I have seen the faces of the other competitors, and I don’t think I am that shocking,” he says.
Although Deljavan vows not to compete in another Cliburn, his North Texas fans probably have not seen the last of him and his trademark facial expressions.
“I would love to come back and perform outside of the competition,” he says.