#david bowlin

One of our ambitions in moving to Oberlin is to engage ourselves more deeply into the process of making and presenting music, and the arts in general. Oberlin College and Conservatory are such a hotbed of art-making, we expect the immersion opportunities to be nearly innumerable.  We thought that by moving here in the summer we’d be able to get comfortably settled before the rush of activities that arrives with the start of the school year. But while we were still enmeshed in unpacking and organizing our new home, just such an opportunity arose — The Thomas and Evon Cooper International Music Competition. It was too enticing to pass up. 

Winners of the 2013 Cooper International Competition—(from left): second-place winner Ming Liu and co-champions William Ching-Yi We and Kyumin Park—with conductor Jahja Ling. (Photo Credit: Roger Mastroianni) 

The Cooper Competition, sponsored by financier Thomas Cooper and pianist/educator Evon Cooper, is a collaborative undertaking of the Obelrin Conservatory and the Cleveland Orchestra. The competition alternates annually between piano and violin focus and it draws highly accomplished young musicians (age 13 to 18) from around the world. The top three performers each year perform a full concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra at venerable Severance Hall; receive a full four-year scholarship to the Oberlin Conservatory; and are awarded cash prizes, $10,000 to the winner.  

The 2013 competition brought 24 high school violin students, aged 14 to 18, to Oberlin from July 18-26, 2013. Despite their youth, they completely wowed us with their talent and skills. The competition began with three days of preliminary rounds at which each performer presented a set of short selections, chosen from a designated repertory. Four judges winnowed the group down to ten who then performed a complete violin concerto accompanied by a piano reduction of the orchestral score. From this group, six were selected to play in the recital finals, after which the three finalists were chosen to play their concertos with the renowned Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall.

2013 Cooper International Competition judge David Bowlin coaching a participant in his Master Class. (Photo Credit: Larry Dunn)

We attended a few of the early rounds, as a break from our seemingly endless sorting and arranging our new digs. But the unanticipated bonus for us came from the Master Classes, which were offered by six of the seven judges. We initially planned to only attend the class presented by judge (and Oberlin faculty member) David Bowlin because we know him through our work with ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble). But we enjoyed David’s coaching of three competitors so much, we decided to attend two more, offered by judges Stephanie Chase and James Buswell. 

We learned so much by observing these three consummate violinists/teachers —about the music, the violin instrument, the bow, modes of expression, and the relationship between the player and the instrument, the audience, the orchestra (or accompanist) one is playing with. Surprisingly, little of the advice given to the young violinists was about technique, because their talent, dedication, and hard work have resulted in impressive technique. The focus was much more on how to more effectively put that technique at the service of their art, about being more expressive, adding some élan and evocative gestures. They also talked about projecting the narrative of the music, playing to the person in the back of the room and appreciating the resonance of the room they are in.

2013 Cooper International Competition judge James Buswell coaching a participant in his Master Class. (Photo Credit: Larry Dunn)

We found the class given by James Buswell, acclaimed violinist and faculty member at the New England Conservatory of Music, the most illuminating and entertaining. Buswell used great metaphors, such as describing a violinist playing too smoothly without subtle shifts in intonation and dynamics as sounding like a used car salesman. He compared putting too much emphasis on slavish adherence to the beat as sounding like a military marching band.