By Lyn Bronson
For the past 23 years the Young Pianist’s Beethoven Competition has been held at San Jose State University during the last weekend in February. This competition was founded in 1987 by Celia Mendez, a San José pianist and teacher, and its purpose is to be an artistic learning experience for California high school students to further their appreciation for Beethoven.
Applicants submit a CD performance of a complete Beethoven Sonata, and a screening committee of qualified pianists selects six semi-finalists to appear in the competition in front of an audience and three prominent judges. Consistent with the aims of this competition, the “prize” of the competition for the three finalists is participation in a master class given by an internationally known artist. The screening comittee this year was headed by Marta Schermerhorn, a pianist and teacher from Palo Alto, and the screening process involved over fifty hours of listening to the CDs from thirty-three California applicants — twenty-two from the north and eleven from the south
Some of the previous artists who have appeared in recital and given master classes in connection with the competition have been Richard Goode, Malcolm Bilson, Claude Frank, Yefim Bronfman, Garrick Ohlsson, John O’Conor, Anton Kuerti, Charles Rosen and Menahem Pressler. This year’s artist, Angela Hewitt, played a recital consisting of two major works by Bach and two Beethoven Sonatas the previous evening.
