Meet Bezhod Abduraimov, 18-year-old Uzbekistani winner last night of the London International Piano Competition. A little internet research tells us, among other things, that he has been scooping prizes left, right and centre recently and is studying in Kansas City with Stanislav Ioudenitch. Alessandro Taverna of Italy won second prize and Andrejs Osokins of Latvia third. I wasn't there (went instead to the Wigmore to hear Razumovsky Ensemble with Philippe and Claire playing Faure G min Piano Quartet, and very wonderful it was), but Tom was playing in the orchestra and arrived home rather excited.
Abduraimov, he says, got a standing ovation for his Prokofiev 3 - for those of you overseas, this is very unusual at the Royal Festival Hall - and seemed "the business". He tells me this: "He had a wonderful attitude from the start - at the rehearsals he seemed very relaxed and was looking forward to the concert. Everything sounded and felt right." And ultimately: "He was amazing!" A friend who attended tells me exactly the same thing.
I found this interview with him in Star Magazine of Kansas City, where he was featured as an 'Emerging Artist' of 2008:
CHANNELING THE COMPOSERS
BY PAUL HORSLEY
The first thing to get past is the pronunciation of his name.
After that, Behzod Abduraimov seems like any other good-natured 17-year-old. He has a quick wit, an infectious laugh and dark eyes that burn with intensity.
But BECH-zod (with a mildly guttural “ch”) Ab-du-ra-EE-moff is no ordinary kid. He’s one of the most remarkable pianists of his generation.
The Uzbekistan native has been performing on the stage since elementary school.
He’s performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 with orchestra “like 20 times.”
In recent weeks he sailed to easy victories at two competitions in Texas, most notably the Corpus Christi International Piano Competition.
He could have studied with any teacher in the world but instead of Juilliard or Berlin he decided to study at Park University with Van Cliburn gold medalist and Park professor Stanislav Ioudenitch.
“My whole family played piano,” says the Tashkent native and undergraduate, who learned English lickety-split after arriving here a little more than a year ago.
His family is Muslim, like 88 percent of Uzbekistanis. His mother, Gulsun, taught him and his three siblings piano, starting Behzod at age 5.
His father, Abdurazzak, was a physicist who taught at the university in Tashkent and invented a car that ran on oxygen.
When Behzod was 10, his father died suddenly of a heart attack.
His 11th birthday was on Sept. 11, 2001.
His mother had prepared the traditional lamb pilaf for his birthday dinner. His sister came home suddenly, upset: “Turn on the TV.” The fall of the World Trade Center put a pall on dinner.
There were other twists along the way. He suffered severe food allergies from birth, which caused his skin to break out in oozing rashes for years.
“You can see it in videos of me then. I looked like Quasimodo.”
The reaction was treated successfully, finally, by an herbalist who prescribed a Tibetan herb. Behzod still takes it daily.
He remains a faithful Muslim, praying twice a day and practicing around the clock in the piano studios beneath Park’s Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel.
“Now I’m 17, and it’s time to work.”
His goal is “to show what a composer wanted to say through his music.”
He came to Ioudenitch after a lesson he took with him in Lake Cuomo, Italy. “He found so many interesting things just in the first page,” he says.
Ioudenitch wanted him as a student the minute he heard him play.
“There are millions of performers, good performers with wonderful technique, but not every one communicates this energy,” Ioudenitch says. “Besides his great technique, he really communicates. He has his own ‘face.’ ”
Behzod’s hobbies include Internet video games. He can’t wait for “Grand Theft Auto IV,” which takes place in the city he hopes to live in some day: New York.
“You feel like you’re free in the city to do anything you want,” he says of the game’s therapeutic value.
And 10 years from now?
“I hope I can be a pianist. Not just any pianist. A pianist people need, who can give people something incredible — who can make people happy.”
He will be back to play a concerto with the LPO - always part of the LIPC prize roster - so I shall look forward to hearing him then.
Meanwhile I'd better call the friend I saw on the train into town last night and explain that when I said Tom was playing in a piano competition, I didn't mean he was playing the piano...
