Digestion doctor wins first YouTube piano contest

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May 31, 2008 - Dr. Christopher Shih, a gastroenterologist who also knows his way around the works of Chopin and Bach, won the Van Cliburn Foundation’s first YouTube piano contest for amateurs aged 35 and over, the organization said yesterday.

Shih’s winning entry, posted on Google Inc.’s YouTube, was a video of his solo piano performance of Los Requiebros from the piano suite Goyescas written by Spanish composer Enrique Granados.

Christopher Shih: Time to quit your day job?

June 3, 2008- Dr. Christopher Shih of Maryland won the Van Cliburn Foundation’s first YouTube piano contest for amateurs. His day job? Gastroenterologist.

Here he is in action:

YouTube viewers choose contest winner

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(reprint)

by Chris Pasles

May 31, 2008- YouTube viewers chose Maryland gastroenterologist Christopher Shih, 35, as the winner in the Van Cliburn Foundation’s first cyberspace contest for amateur classical pianists.

Shih’s winning entry shows him playing “Los requiebros” from Granados’ “Goyescas.” Shih, a Harvard graduate who works at the Maryland Digestive Disease Center, was one of 41 pianists, 35 and older, from Italy, Japan, Mexico, Romania and the United States, who submitted 5- to 10-minute performance videos for the online competition.

Shih’s prize will be to compete on stage at the International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in 2011 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Maryland doctor wins first Cliburn YouTube Contest

The Baltimore Sun
by Tim Smith

May 30, 2008- A gastroenterologist from Maryland, Christopher Shih, has been named winner of the first YouTube Conest for amateur pianists, presented by the Van Cliburn Foundation in Fort Worth, Texas. His entry was an assured and colorful performance of Los requiebros from Goyescas by Granados. Dr. Shih, 35, will now gain automatic entry, application fee-free, to the next Cliburn International Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in 2011. About 2,400 people voted online, choosing among 41 amateurs (age 35 and older) who uploaded video performances of 5-10 minutes in length on YouTube. Dr. Shih, who earned his medical degree at Johns Hopkins, is affiliated with the Maryland Digestive Disease Center, which has offices in Ellicott City, Laurel and Takoma Park.

Maryland Doctor Wins Cliburn YouTube Contest

KERA Art & Seek
by Olin Chism

May 30th, 2008- Christopher Shih, a 35-year-old gastroenterologist from Maryland, has won the first YouTube Contest for amateur pianists sponsored by the Van Cliburn Foundation. He will receive automatic entry into the sixth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, which will be held in Fort Worth in the spring of 2011.

Maryland pianist named first winner of Van Cliburn YouTube contest

By Chris Shull

May 30, 2008- FORT WORTH — Classical music fans can go to YouTube.com, the popular video Web site, to see performances by Van Cliburn, Lang Lang, Arthur Rubinstein and other famous pianists.

Now Christopher Shih, a physician who lives in Maryland, has a pretty big presence on the site, too. Friday, he was named winner of the Van Cliburn Foundation’s first YouTube Piano Contest.

A Piano, a Camcorder and a Competition

A New YouTube Contest Brings to Mind
Van Cliburn and the Price of Success

by Terry Teachout

March 15, 2008- Fifty years ago next month, a 23-year-old whiz kid from Texas won the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow, instantaneously becoming America’s best-known classical musician and earning a hatful of money in the process. Van Cliburn, then as now a generous man, thereupon started his own piano competition, hoping to give other gifted young artists the same opportunity that the Tchaikovsky Competition had given him. Mr. Cliburn hasn’t played regularly in public since 1978, but the Van Cliburn Competition is still doing business in Fort Worth, and it’s celebrating the anniversary of his Cold War triumph by launching a new venture that would have been unthinkable in 1958: the Cliburn YouTube Contest, in which amateur pianists over the age of 35 shoot videos of their own playing and upload them to www.youtube.com/vancliburnfoundation, where computer-savvy music lovers will view them and pick a winner.

YouTube viewers can vote for their favorite pianist

Van Cliburn Foundation holds a talent search on YouTube
By Diane Haithman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 3, 2008- If you’re a classical music aficionado envious of the “American Idol” viewers who get to vote on their favorite contestants, your time has come.

Inspired not by “Idol” but by Popsearch 2007, an online talent search sponsored by the Boston Popsthe Van Cliburn Foundation has taken its competition into cyberspace with its first YouTube contest for amateur classical pianists.

Contestant brief: Greg Kostraba

May 8, 2008, Toledo, Ohio - Greg Kostraba, classical music director at WGTE-FM (91.3) can be seen on YouTube until May 15, competing in the Van Cliburn Amateur YouTube Competition. One of 42 performers selected for this contest, Kostraba, who also performs and leads a chamber music group locally, is playing Robert Muczynski’s “Desperate Measures,” a light-hearted yet challenging set of variations on a theme by Paganini. His performance is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJCban6asWg.

Cliburn Foundation YouTube contest

March 16, 2008 - FORT WORTH, Texas – The Van Cliburn Foundation will host its first Cliburn YouTube Contest this spring.

To enter, eligible amateur pianists should submit a five- to 10-minute performance video to be judged by online viewers. Winner of the Cliburn YouTube Contest will be entered in the next International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, to be held in summer 2011. The application fee will be waived.

Piano contest seeks participants, voters

by Tom Strini, Staff

March 12, 2008- The Van Cliburn Foundation will host a YouTube video piano competition for amateurs, to be judged by online viewers.

The contest is open to any classical pianist who does not derive a significant portion of his or her income from performance, composition and/or piano instruction and is at least 35 years old.

YouTube will be stage for a Cliburn contest

[carried story]

March 20–FORT WORTH — Move over, Numa Numa guy. Take a break, Filipino inmates busting out Thriller moves. YouTube isn’t just for pop-culture wackiness anymore.

The Van Cliburn Foundation has launched the Cliburn YouTube Contest, part of a search for entrants for its next International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, to be held in 2011. Amateur pianists over age 35 may upload a video of themselves playing a classical composition — jazz, pop or other styles are disqualifiers — to www.youtube.com/vancliburnfoundation by April 30. On May 1, viewers can look at the videos and vote for their favorite pianist. The winner, whose name will be announced May 30, will be invited to compete in the 2011 competition in Fort Worth.

Cliburn Competition welcomes amateur YouTubers

The Baltimore Sun
by Tim Smith

March 5, 2008- Attention, all you amateur pianists — age 35 or older and Web-savvy, that is. The Van Cliburn Foundation announced today the first Cliburn YouTube Contest, welcoming cyber-video entries of 5-10 minutes in length. The videos will be judged by online viewers and the winner will be entered, application fee-free, in the 2011 International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs.

Help pick artists in Cliburn amateur competition

by Todd Camp
Star-Telegram staff writer

May 13, 2008- YouTube’s not just for silly videos of people making Diet Pepsi geysers with packages of Mentos. There’s potential artists in them thar mpegs, and you can help single them out.

The Van Cliburn Foundation’s Cliburn YouTube Contest asked eligible amateur pianists to submit 5- to 10-minute performance videos to be judged by online viewers.

The last day to vote is Thursday, so surf on over to www.cliburn.org, watch the 42 hopefuls and pick your favorites. The winner will be entered in the next International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in the summer of 2011, and his or her application fee will be waived.

Voting Starts for Cliburn YouTube Contest

May 2, 2008

By Susan Elliott

Voting for the Van CLIBURN Foundation’s first YouTube Contest for Amateur Classical Pianists began yesterday, with the Foundation e-mailing ballots to some 50,000 names on its mailing list. Individuals not on the list can also vote, by going to the contest’s site on YouTube, where they will first be asked to submit their e-mail address to the Foundation in order to cast their ballot. No cheating allowed.

Cliburn Foundation YouTubes its way toward event

BY MICHAEL H. PRICE

March 31, 2008- If the 20th-century jukebox was an ultimate artifact of democracy, enabling one to impose one’s musical tastes upon entire rooms full of other people, then online video must

be its new-century counterpart — allowing users not only to Web-cast their interests, but also to create their own performances as a mass-media manifesto: I YouTube, therefore I am.