{"id":196530,"date":"2025-09-03T10:03:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/196530\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T10:03:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:03:16","slug":"2025-cliburn-winners-launch-global-piano-tours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/196530\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 Cliburn Winners Launch Global Piano Tours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every four years, the world of classical music turns its eyes \u2014 and ears \u2014 to Fort Worth. The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition<\/a>, equal parts athletic showdown and spiritual trial, is one of those rare cultural events that manages to feel both hyperlocal and global all at once. This past June, after two weeks of late-night practice sessions, nerve-rattling performances, and more than 30 million online views across 170 countries, three pianists walked away from Bass Performance Hall with medals dangling from their necks and careers about to take flight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now comes the victory lap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Cliburn has announced the 2025\u201326 touring seasons for its three newest stars: Aristo Sham of Hong Kong, the newly minted gold medalist; Vitaly Starikov, a Russian-Israeli firebrand who took silver; and Boston-born Evren Ozel, the bronze medalist with a Mozart touch so elegant it won him an extra prize of his own. For each, the coming year will be a blur of airports, orchestra rehearsals, and standing ovations as they take the music forged in Fort Worth to the broader world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At twenty-nine,\u00a0Aristo Sham<\/strong>\u00a0(gold, 29, Hong Kong, China) already has a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 that reads like a fantasy: royal command performances for King Charles, a teenage turn in a British documentary, collaborations with Sir Simon Rattle. Yet it was in Cowtown that his artistry crystallized. Judges and critics called him \u201ca marvel of deft characterization\u201d and \u201ca card-carrying risk taker,\u201d and the Cliburn audience fell hard enough to vote him their favorite.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This season, Sham is booked from Duszniki, Poland, to Daegu, South Korea, to College Station, Texas \u2014 a calendar that reads like both a world tour and a Texas road trip. The gold medalist\u2019s fall includes marquee stops in Fort Worth, Houston, El Paso, and Boulder, Colorado, before a sweeping Asia swing through Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Seoul. By spring, he\u2019ll be back stateside, making his way from Huntsville, Alabama, to La Jolla, California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Sham is the dashing leading man,\u00a0Vitaly Starikov <\/strong>(silver, 30, Israel\/Russia) plays the brooding poet. Reviewers praise his \u201craw, deeply felt, and powerful\u201d interpretations, the kind that seem less performed than conjured. At the Cliburn, his Bart\u00f3k concerto shook Bass Hall to its rafters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starikov\u2019s upcoming schedule reflects his dual nature: a thinker and a risk-taker, but one who prefers to pull audiences close rather than dazzle from afar. He\u2019ll make stops from Fredericksburg, Texas, to New Haven, Connecticut, and return to Colorado Springs in the spring. Audiences in Alabama, Arizona, and California will get their turn as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s\u00a0Evren Ozel<\/strong> (bronze, 26, United States)\u00a0, who has been earning raves as \u201can absolute wow\u201d ever since snagging the bronze and the prize for best Mozart. Already a winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Ozel is as comfortable in a chamber ensemble as he is in front of a symphony orchestra. His 2025\u201326 calendar proves it: a dizzying blend of solo recitals, chamber collaborations, and concerto appearances that range from Portland, Oregon, to Vilnius, Lithuania, to Roswell, New Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And yes, he\u2019s got plenty of Texas dates too \u2014 from Montgomery to College Station to Arlington, where he\u2019ll join Symphony Arlington in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a list of each pianist’s tour schedule,\u00a0click here<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every four years, the world of classical music turns its eyes \u2014 and ears \u2014 to Fort Worth.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":196531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,2677,7371,7372,9730,11878,3717,358,7453,1446,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,109265,109264],"class_list":{"0":"post-196530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-artists","10":"tag-fort-worth","11":"tag-fortworth","12":"tag-fwtx-staff","13":"tag-live-music","14":"tag-musicians","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-top-story","17":"tag-tour","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-van-cliburn","26":"tag-van-cliburn-international-piano-competition"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115139798866246769","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}