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The Stage II piano auditions—with orchestral accompaniment— for Round II began in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on June 24th. In this stage the Competition rules require the musicians to perform one of Mozart’s piano concertos, and six pianists performed on the first day. The first three of these—Sergey Redkin, Maria Mazo, and Reed Tetzloff—played with accompaniment from the Moscow Soloists Chamber Ensemble conducted by Ayrton Desimpelaer. After the intermission, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra (State Chamber Orchestra of Russia) under the baton of Alexey Utkin accompanied Ilya Rashkovsky, George Li, and Lucas Debargue. These performances generated the most excitement so far—the Great Hall was filled to capacity. It was as if illustrious stars were on stage at the Conservatory rather than the youthful competitors. All the competitors on this day played different concertos. (Although Concerto No. 23 was played twice, the interpretations given it by Reed Tetzloff and George Li, each with a different orchestra, were so personal that there was no sense of one repeating the other.) Sergey Redkin chose Concerto No. 12 for which he provided cadenzas he had composed himself. Maria Mazo in Concerto No. 21 preferred the cadenzas written by Paul Badura-Skoda, which showed off her extremely athletic style of playing. Reed Tetzloff in the Concerto No. 23 was able to engage the audience with a subtle lyricism, and Ilya Rashkovsky once again showed his discernment in choosing Concerto No. 27, which is beautifully suited to his personal style and artistic idiom. A good many listeners expected George Li to show off his pianistic “muscles”. However, the 19-year-old American musician had arranged a surprise. His playing showed not even a trace of the powerful virtuosity that astounded everyone when he offered Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody” in Stage I of Round II. For Mozart his tone was notable for its lightness, clarity, and transparency of texture. In the Concerto, particularly in its lyrical and meditative second movement, Li established that he was not merely a brilliant virtuoso of technique, but also a musician of immense potential. The evening ended with Lucas Debargue, the audience favourite after the first stage of Round II, who received quite a loud ovation even as he came on stage. It is remarkable that this 24-year-old musician had never before played with an orchestra, but that lack of experience never interfered with delivering what was expected of him. Once more it was as if Lucas Debargue were creating the music right then and there. The cadenzas that he had written himself added to the sense that he was at liberty as an artist, and like everything this exceptional pianist has done in this Competition convinced even the hardened dissenters. Debargue’s performance earned a stormy round of applause that he gratefully shared with Alexey Utkin and the orchestra. On June 25th the pianists will complete the orchestral stage of Round II. The next six pianists will come on stage: Lukas Geniušas, Daniel Kharitonov, Julia Kociuban, Mikhail Turpanov, Nikolay Medvedev, and Dmitry Masleev. Auditions begin at 5:00 pm. When they have been heard, the jury will announce the results of Round II and name those who will advance to the finals. Auditions of the violinists continue in the Moscow Conservatory. For the second stage of Round II the semi-finalists are to play a Mozart concerto, either the Third, Fourth or the Fifth, which is the most popular and was chosen by three of the six competitors. Two of them chose the Third, and just one will play the Fourth. The lineup is much the same for the next day of auditions when the Fifth will be played at the start three times in a row. Six semi-finalists performed in the Small Hall on June 24th: Pavel Milyukov (Russia), Alexandra Conunova (Moldova), Mayu Kishima (Japan), Younguk Kim (South Korea), Stepan Starikov (Russia), and Bomsori Kim (South Korea). In the first stage of Round II the competitors had very broad range of repertoire to choose from, but now they are more restricted than in Round I when they played Bach, Paganini, and Tchaikovsky one after the other. And now, of course, these soloists are not alone, as they are accompanied in Stage II of Round II by the Musica Viva Moscow Chamber Orchestra conducted by Valentin Uryupin. This is a very fortunate arrangement for the violinists because they are playing with one of the country’s best chamber orchestras who are no strangers to prominent events in the Moscow musical season. They have interpreted Haydn’s oratorios, Handel’s and Mozart’s operas and much more. In the first half of this Mozart marathon the orchestra was one of its outstanding participants. Pavel Milyukov began the auditions with the Violin Concerto No. 5. Stepan Starikov and Bomsori Kim, who ended the day’s auditions, made the same selection. Alexandra Conunova played No. 4, while Mayu Kishima and Younguk Kim chose No. 3. Every one of these competitors expanded the scope of their talents. On June 25th the Round II auditions continue with Yu-Chien Tseng (5:00 pm), Clara-Jumi Kang (5:30 pm), Yoo Jin Jang (6:15 pm), Haik Kazazyan (7:30), Sergei Pospelov (8:00 pm), and Christopher Tun Andersen (8:45 pm). The results for Round II will be announced at 10:30 pm. The first day of cello auditions in Stage II of Round II took place. In the Small Hall of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic there were six performances of Joseph Haydn’s cello concertos. Even though this would be the shortest audition in the Competition (a Haydn concerto lasts no more than 30 minutes) Stage II assigns a difficult challenge to the competitors and demands unrelenting concentration. Like the crystalline clarity of a mountain stream, Haydn’s classical open textures in his concertos reveal every lapse or misstep. The first part of the day’s auditions began at 5:30 pm, and the Chamber Ensemble of the Shostakovich State Academic Saint Petersburg Philharmonic led by Vladimir Altschuler took the stage alongside the competitors. The evening opened with Anastasia Kobekina who played the C major concerto, Hob. VII, No. 1. This young cellist holds the secret to a beautiful tone on her instrument, and she used it to good effect in her soulful and absorbing performance of the second movement. She also inserted a shade of lyricism into the boisterous finale. After Anastasia Kobekina the playing of Pablo Ferrández-Casto, who had chosen the same C major concerto, hewed closer to a classical style. Every passage was well thought out and very distinctly played, and the whirlwind finale sparkled with joyful fervour and brilliance. Beginning in Round I, Pablo showed himself to be a musician with a conceptual approach, and he maintained that same stance. The first session ended with Leonard Elschenbroich from Germany, who decided on the D major concerto, Hob. VII, No. 2. He played it in a Romantic fashion, and that proved a rather difficult thing to bring off. The second session at 7: 30 pm featured the Chamber Ensemble of the Mariinsky Theatre conducted by Alexei Bogorad, and Alexander Buzlov began it. He dispatched all the difficulties and bypassed the hazards that were buried in the C major concerto. It was truly the performance of a mature artist, and it received long and loud applause. The evening came to a close with the performances of Valentino Worlitzsch from Germany and Seung Min Kang from South Korea, both accompanied by the Chamber Ensemble of the Mariinsky Theatre in the D major concerto. And these were two very fine performances although they were very different from each other. Worlitzsch emphasized the profound meditative qualities found in Haydn’s ideal world, while Seung Min Kang tended as before to employ Romantic expressiveness. Tomorrow is the last day of Round II for cellists, and the jury will select six finalists. Auditions will take place on the same schedule as today’s. At 5:00 pm the Chamber Ensemble of the Shostakovich State Academic Saint Petersburg Philharmonic led by Vladimir Altschuler will accompany Tristan Cornut, Andrei Ioniță, and Philippe Bruno. At 7:30 the Chamber Ensemble of the Mariinsky Theatre conducted by Alexei Bogorad will take over and accompany Fedor Amosov, Jonathan Roozeman, and Alexander Ramm. All but Tristan Cornut will play Haydn’s C major concerto. Tomorrow is the last day when the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition will occupy the Small Hall of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, Russia’s oldest concert venue. Round III, which consists of performances with a full symphony orchestra, will take place in the Great Hall of the Philharmonic on Ulitsa Mikhailovskaya. The second day of Round I for voice auditions has concluded. A quite interesting new contest came to the Mussorgsky Hall of Mariinsky II. The jury heard 14 vocalists: 11 Russians, and one from Ukraine, one from Estonia, and a tenor from South Korea. The first portion of the day was devoted mostly to the Baroque, from Bach to Mozart, but the evening auditions emphasized Verdi arias in performances with very different qualities of strength, musicality, and conviction. The evening auditions began with Harri Hukasian, a student at the Odessa National Nezhdanova Academy of Music and since 2014 a soloist with the Odessa National Theatre of Opera. He gave a fine performance with Handel’s Dignare, o Domine and Tchaikovsky’s “The Heroic Deed”, and it was pleasing to Petersburg music-lovers that this guest from Odessa sang the Venetian guest’s aria from “Sadko” by Nikolai Rimsky-Kosakov whose monument stands just opposite the Mariinsky next to the Conservatory. Natalya Pavlova’s performance cast its own spell as she sang all three of her numbers with strong emotion—a set of three pieces from Handel’s cantata “Armida abbandonata”, Marguerite’s aria from “Faust”, and “Why?” by Tchaikovsky. Mezzo-soprano Irina Shishkova, already known from her appearances at the Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky theatres, boldly launched into Princess Eboli’s aria, O don fatale, from Verdi’s “Don Carlos” right after a valiant rendition of Buß und Reu from Bach’s “Matthaus-Passion” and a glittering account of Tchaikovsky’s romance “Tell Me, What in the Shade of the Branches”. Evgenia Dushina from Moscow and a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory studying under Pyotr Skusnichenko offered a very well-conceived and confident traversal of her repertoire in Round I—Fiordiligi’s aria, Come scoglio, from Mozart’s “Così fan tutte”, Nedda’s ballad from Leoncavallo’s “I pagliacci”, and Tchaikovsky’s song “If I had Known”. Baritone Alexey Zelenkov from Novosibirsk chose a perfect repertoire for his vocal role—the Count di Luna’s aria from “Il trovatore”, Figaro’s aria, Aprite un po’ quegli occhi, from Mozart’s “Le nozze di Figaro”, and Tchaikovsky’s “The Heroic Deed”. Dmitry Demidchik who is 32 was the revelation of the evening taking on the role of a lyric tenor after singing in the previous Tchaikovsky Competition as a baritone. He made a strong case for two diametrically opposed arias—Don Ottavio’s aria, Dalla sua pace, from “Don Giovanni” and the Chevalier des Grieux’s aria, Ah! Manon, mi tradisce il tuo folle pensiero!, from Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” set off against Tchaikovsky’s romance “Why?”. Anastasia Fedorova was not afraid to show her impetuous temperament as a dramatic soprano in Amelia’s aria, Morrò, ma prima in grazia, from Verdi’s “Un ballo in maschera”. She used an equally unbridled dramatic tone for Elena’s aria from Gluck’s “Parid ed Elena”, and that is not to mention her breath-taking interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s “Was I Not a Little Blade of Grass in the Meadow”. Twenty-eight-year-old Anton Zaraev in Mazeppa’s aria, O, Mariya, from the opera of that name left no doubt that he would soon be an outstanding interpreter in that starring role.