Going Big at Dubai’s Classic Violin Olympus 

By Robert Markow

In Dubai, size matters. Fueled by trade, tourism, aviation, real estate, and financial services, this futuristic panegyric to luxury consumerism has morphed from a small desert trading post facing the Arabian Sea into a glamorous urban destination sprouting a veritable forest of skyscrapers.

It is the most populous of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates and may well be the fastest-growing city in the world. In just 25 years, its population has grown from under one million to nearly four. Ninety percent of its inhabitants are expats. Dubai has the world’s tallest building (the Burj Khalifa, at 2,717 feet over half a mile high), the world’s largest mall (1,200 shops and eateries covering almost 11 million square feet), the tallest hotel (the Ciel Tower—82 floors, 1,227 feet, soon to open), the biggest fountain (900-feet long, shooting jets 500 feet into the air), the biggest artificial island (the Palm Jumeirah, visible from space), the world’s highest 360-degree infinity swimming pool (the Aura Skypool, over 650 feet up), the biggest observation wheel (Ain Dubai, about 800 feet high), and the world’s largest exclusively international airline (Emirates), with more than 150 destinations in 80 countries on six continents.

In April, this land of “the bigger the better” saw the largest monetary prize ever conferred on a first-prize winner in a violin competition: 200,000 euros, plus a Stradivari model instrument crafted by Fabio Piagentini. The competition was titled Classic Violin Olympus, and Olympian it certainly was in some ways. The jury alone comprised 25 members. The 12 contestants from nine countries were already first- and second-prize winners from six preliminary competitions held over the past year in New York, Tokyo, Dubai, Rome, Vienna, and London, with prizes of 20,000 euros for first prize and 10,000 for second. The required repertory in the final round included, in addition to a standard Romantic concerto, a concerto by the competition’s composer-in-residence Alexey Shor, a stint as concertmaster, participation in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, and an encore of choice. But what really got tongues wagging was the almost unheard-of lack of an age limit. The violinists’ ages ranged from 17 to 48, which divided evenly into two groups: 17 to 25, and 39 to 48. The venue was the 643-seat Zabeel Theatre, a multi-purpose hall located at the western tip of the outermost frond of the Palm Jumeirah. Vibrant red seats fill a space that manages to combine intimacy with spaciousness and decent acoustics.

Unlike most competitions, this one did not eliminate contestants in stages. Everyone performed all the required repertory, and the judges assigned points to each at the conclusion of all the rounds. The 11 competitors who did not win the top prize all received 10,000 euros. Also, unlike nearly every other such competition, few of the jury members were violinists themselves but rather conductors, managers, artistic administrators, pianists, and even a clarinetist. The public was not banned from attending; it simply wasn’t invited, resulting in the eerie sensation of applause from an “audience” that numbered barely three dozen—the jury plus a smattering of media personnel—and that had to be deliberately subdued so as not to indicate favoritism.

Aside from the unaccompanied encore, all the repertory required orchestral participation. As Dubai does not have an orchestra of its own, two were imported: the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, which served for the Romantic concerto and the concertmaster exercise, and the Madrid Philharmonic, which was used for Beethoven’s Triple Concerto (first movement only) and the Shor concerto.

Competitors could choose from five standard concertos: Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Shostakovich No. 1. No surprises there. What did surprise was that not one of the 12 contestants chose Beethoven. Also surprising was that of the five concertmaster solos on offer—those from the St. Matthew Passion, the Missa solemnis, Swan Lake, Ein Heldenleben, and Strauss’s Der Bürger als Edelmann—no one chose Bach or Beethoven. Not surprisingly, all but one chose either Ein Heldenleben or Swan Lake.  While this component was meant to demonstrate the contestant’s leadership ability, there was little leadership required for these solo passages. A better indication of concertmaster potential would have been to lead the orchestra in a complete movement of a symphony, or, even better, to serve as both conductor and concertmaster in a classical-period symphony or concerto.

The competition attracted some remarkable talent, to be sure, but generally not on the level of the more prestigious Queen Elisabeth, Sibelius, Paganini, or Indianapolis competitions. While there were numerous isolated performances of exceptional quality, to these ears only two of the twelve competitors performed on a consistently high level. These were, as it happens, the youngest and oldest of the lot. Seventeen-year-old Jinzhu Li from China, currently studying in Frankfurt, demonstrated total security, assurance, immaculate technique, drama without histrionics, and a natural ease that belied the difficulty of the music. Unique among the competitors, Li brought abundant poetry to her playing, a quality at once apparent in the magic she conjured from the opening of the Sibelius concerto. Here is someone to watch closely in the future. Forty-eight-year-old Boris Brovtsyn, a professor at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität in Vienna, likewise demonstrated a sense of ease on the stage combined with self-assurance and confidence, plus the element of maturity that comes with age.

One might reasonably have expected the jury to be looking for the “whole package,” someone who could produce at the highest level in all capacities. Nevertheless, the grand prize went to 42-year-old Armenian violinist Haik Kazazyan. Kazazyan indeed impressed as one of the few who showed total artistic communion with his fellow trio companions in the Triple Concerto, as well as exemplary ensemble work. He also persuasively swept listeners into his orbit in Shor’s Fourth Concerto, with its Romani-inspired elements and rhythmic frivolity. (Kazazyan also won the prize for best performance of a Shor concerto.) But his rendition of the Tchaikovsky concerto came off as something of a caricature, lacking in polish, often sounding labored, and including a final movement that was frantic beyond belief.

Many competitions require contestants to perform either a freshly minted work or something of recent vintage. The Violin Olympus did so, too, but with a twist. Violinists could choose from one of three concertos by composer-in-residence Alexey Shor—Nos. 4, 5, or 6, all written within the past few years. However, there is nothing remotely modern-sounding about Shor’s music. In fact, it might almost have been written by a minor composer from the 19th century, overlaid with a patina of romantic film music from the 1950s. It is invariably lyrical, though not necessarily melodic, and adheres to simple harmonic patterns.

Shor is quite content to live in the musical past: “I don’t believe that art has to be continually reinventing itself,” he says. “The idea of constant evolution doesn’t resonate with me.” Shor relies more on repetition than on development, the music unfolding in a series of disconnected short episodes. Nevertheless, several contestants made convincing cases for Shor’s concertos (No. 6 was the most popular, and, to these ears, the best of the lot), Brovtsyn and Li among them.

Unaccompanied encores, announced from the stage, provided the greatest element of surprise. Only two contestants played Bach; two Ysaÿe, and one Kreisler. Of the remainder, several were revelations, particularly Ernst Schliephake’s arrangement of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G minor, played by Kazazyan, and Heinrich Ernst’s spellbinding arrangement of Schubert’s song “Erlkönig,” which one jury member pronounced “nearly impossible.” Xiao Wang proved with aplomb that this virtuosic workout was indeed possible.

There was still another element of surprise and innovation to this competition. Immediately following the encore, each contestant was required to respond to a question from a jury member about some aspect of the musical world at large, the response presumably revealing something about the personality and character of the performer. It seemed like a good idea in theory, but many of the questions were vague, poorly expressed, too involved, or otherwise unsuitable for a short impromptu response. A better idea would have been to let the contestants prepare written responses in advance, especially considering that some of them were not entirely fluent in English.

In the end, Classic Violin Olympus provided a new paradigm, one more about transcending traditions than about winning prizes. As its artistic director, violinist Pavel Vernikov, stated, “So many music competitions are, so to speak, children of the same parents. The programs are often very similar, and even after a win, the opportunities to make yourself known and proceed into a good career are surprisingly slim. As an artistic director, I have tried to fix that as much as possible. Big competitions have lost their impact. I know many examples of winners who receive a prize, participate in a couple of concerts, and are never heard from again. We want all 12 finalists in our competition to be able to successfully build and continue their careers, to be in demand and not forgotten in six months.” To this end, jury members were encouraged to invite any contestants of their choice for future engagements with their respective institutions, thus extending opportunities for career advancement to all.

Dubai, which looks constantly to the future, was symbolically an ideal setting for Vernikov’s vision. Will it host another Violin Olympus? Quite possibly, and the prize money, like so many of its buildings, will surely be sky-high.