I noticed that Eldon unearthed a year old thread of Piano*Son playing the Rach G minor prelude. That was a piece he used in the Virginia Federation of Music Clubs state competition last year. He didn't win with that piece, but he did do well in some other competitions with it (and made over $500 in scholarship money, which is always nice).

BUT, he did win this year's Federation Competition with this piece by Griffes.

The White Peacock

If you've never heard of Griffes, you're not alone. He died quite young in 1920. And if you hear strains of Debussy in this work, you're on the money. He was definitely writing in an impressionist style.

The Federation competition requires students to play a piece by an American composer as well as an elective piece by anyone. They're quite liberal about what counts as American. Rachmaninoff counted .... naturalized late in life. Yeah, right, American.

Nice to see you here.

Thanks for posting the video. It's gorgeous.

The Spokane Symphony performed The WHite Peacock last year. It is lovely! I had never heard of it/him before that performance.

I really like Griffes. Noel Lee recorded some of his pieces on Nonesuch many years ago - very decent music.

Wonderful!

P*S sent this recording in to From the Top (FTT henceforth). We're not holding our collective breath, however.

He applied last year with his Rachmaninoff and another piece. When the 'thin letter' arrived in the mail we presumed it was the usual 'sorry Charlie' note. Instead, it was a very positive reaction from FTT. They said that although they didn't have a spot for him at that time, they were impressed with his playing and they wanted to keep his file open. They encouraged him to send in more work as he completed it ... hence his updated application using this piece.

Nonetheless, I would think a FTT 'yes' is a low probability event, given the vast number of hyper-good twelve year olds out there! Now, if he gets Debussy's Toccata completed to the same level of accuracy, who knows. THAT'S a piece that might be able to hold its own in FTT land.