Pianists Soyeon Lee and Orion Weiss—the winners of this year's Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition at Juilliard—will launch the new season of the McGraw-Hill Companies' Young Artists Showcase on WQXR with a concert that will be broadcast live from Paul Hall at 9 p.m. on October 16, hosted by Robert Sherman. The program will include solo piano works by Scriabin, Granados, piano duos by Arensky and Britten—and a surprise work. Tiffany Kuo caught up with Soyeon, fresh from capturing third prize in the 14th Paloma O'Shea International Piano Competition in Santander, Spain, and Orion, back from performing Lowell Liebermann's Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Colorado Music Festival—before classes began and got the scoop on their adventurous summers.

Orion Weiss and Soyeon Lee. (Photo by Peter Schaaf)

Korean native Soyeon Lee, a two-time Bachauer winner at age 23, is a second-year master's student of Robert McDonald. She also received her bachelor's degree from Juilliard, as a student of Jerome Lowenthal—with whom she also studied at Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara during one summer.

TK: Soyeon, I remember seeing you right after the Bachauer, before you left for Pittsburgh.

SL: Yes, I was in Pittsburgh for a week, before going to the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival—since I didn't have a piano to practice on here in New York. My old piano teacher is from Pittsburgh, where I'm from, so I stayed with her. Then I went to Bowdoin, which was fantastic! I worked with Veda [Yoheved Kaplinsky] for two and a half weeks and played a lot of student recitals that really helped, since many of the pieces I was preparing for the Santander were rather new. I probably didn't get as much practicing done as I needed to… but it was a good environment, and I got to play a lot.

TK: And that, above all, is extremely helpful before a major international competition—which the Santander is.

SL: Then I went to Taos [School of Music in New Mexico], to see Bob [Robert McDonald]—and those were four really intense days.

TK: Did you also work with others there, since it's a chamber music festival?

Gina Bachauer Internation Piano Competition Winners' Concert Paul Hall, October 16, 9 p.m. This event is free; no tickets are required.

SL: Right, I read through the Schumann Quintet with the players there, and played for Bob. So, Taos was extremely helpful. Then I was off to Spain. Frankly, this was my first major international competition, so I was really freaked out. It was such a new experience. Luckily, Santander was one of the most well-organized and well-supported competitions. From the minute we arrived, we were taken care of.

TK: Did you have a host family?

SL: No, we all stayed at a nunnery—with the nuns! We had our own rooms and bathrooms…

TK: Only the women?

SL: No, for everyone. It was across the street from the competition.

TK: So, it's not a convent?

SL: No, it's like a retreat center, very nice and quiet, which was much-needed after the long flight from New York. We had gotten delayed at J.F.K. for about six hours—which caused a second delay in Madrid for another six hours, since we lost our connection to Santander. But it was fun because it was a big group, since there were a lot of people from the U.S.

TK: This was your first major international competition, and you placed third!

SL: I was petrified! Upon arrival, I felt a bit out of place, a bit overwhelmed—both from the other pianists, and from the huge repertoire. Honestly, I was hoping to God that I wouldn't have to play on the first day, so I could settle down a bit to focus.

TK: Santander is unique in that there are three rounds, and within each round, there are two parts. And one of the components of the first round is chamber music… which, in most competitions, one wouldn't get to until the semis.

SL: Yes—and from the first day, the drawing determines the order of each pianist's performances. Lucky me, I drew to play on day one! I gave the third recital of the 20 recitals in the first round, for part one. In a way, that was good—with that over, I could work on the chamber music for part two. The rehearsals with the Ysaÿe Quartet were very intense, because we barely had time to run through the entire piece. So not only were we just trying to play together; we were trying to communicate ideas simultaneously. The night we performed the Schumann Quintet, it was the fourth and last Schumann that evening.

TK: That's an intensive first round! Not to mention the jet lag and cultural differences.

SL: One of the hardest things to adjust to was the food. They have good food—but for the first few days, I couldn't find any restaurants that I liked, and I didn't speak Spanish. So I was hungry for a week! I survived on chocolates the nuns were giving out. Then there were the extra-long days, due to the siestas; I would perform around 11:30 p.m. It really was a lot to deal with.

TK: Then came round two and three—it's like a boxing match!

SL: I had a one-day break, and then the second round began with the Classical concerto—which was Beethoven's First, for me. That was fun: dress, big orchestra. Then came the second recital program, by which time I was dead. I don't think I have ever felt so tired before. And I had to play the Liszt Sonata; that took everything out of me. But I'm really happy I went, because it boosted my confidence. Winning third was a nice surprise, since I didn't expect anything.

TK: How was the final round?

SL: The London Symphony was so good. They were amazing! And they were so nice. After every rehearsal, they would "bravo" us, talk to us, so it was a lot of fun. But the publicity was the most fun: these photographers followed us, took us out to the beach and filmed us. Because, at the gala, they presented a brief video of each of us: who we are, what we did—so Hollywood!—on the big screen, with Billy Crystal-like people hosting. So, while each winner waited backstage, there was this video of us—and then the curtain goes up, I'm on stage, I bow, and I play a little piece—like an encore.

TK: Wow! That's organization.

SL: Yes, they were organized, extremely nice, and the newspapers covered the event daily.

Twenty-year-old Orion Weiss is a third-year undergraduate student of Emanuel Ax. Prior to attending Juilliard, he was a student of Paul Schenly in Cleveland for four years. He received the 2000-01 Gilmore Young Artist Award and the 2002 Avery Fisher Career Grant.

TK: How was your summer, Orion?

OW: I spent two weeks at Pianofest, in the Hamptons—it was my sixth year! I started going to Pianofest—run by Paul Schenly, who was my piano teacher throughout my high school years—at 14, in the summer of 1995. I did miss one summer, though, when I attended Music Academy of the West at Santa Barbara, like Soyeon; though we met at Pianofest.

TK: Now, that's a lot of summers with just pianists! Most avid music festival musicians go to Aspen or Tanglewood—somewhere with hundreds of musicians of all kinds, intrumentalists and vocalists—but you consistently chose one with 15 pianists, all practicing under one roof for eight weeks.

OW: I love it. Pianofest is way out on Long Island—it's quiet and idyllic, plus the movies are 50 cents cheaper than Manhattan. As for the pianists… there are twice as many pianists as there are pianos, so it can be a battle, but we all become good friends. Because there are only 15 musicians rather than a hundred or more, we really get to learn from each other.

TK: You must be super-pals with Mr. Schenly by now?

OW: For five years Mr. Schenly would tease me, and I wouldn't know what to say; I would just blush. But finally, one year, I had a come-back line—and since then, I've been immune to teasing!

TK: This summer, you were invited back to Santa Barbara to honor him, right?

OW: Right. This summer he received the Distinguished Alumni Award at Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where he was first a student and then a teacher. Mr. Lowenthal and I played the eight-hand version of the "Stars and Stripes Forever" at the award ceremony in Santa Barbara. It was so much fun!

TK: And who were the third and fourth pianists?

OW: It was me, Mr. Lowenthal, Jim Giles, and Jeffrey Gamner. At the very end, when the piccolo comes in—"bi-da-dom, bi-dom," that was me—we all stood up. The audience cheered. I got to hear all about Mr. Schenly when he was young. Then I went back to Pianofest for four or five days before flying to Colorado, to play a Mozart Concerto and the Liebermann Second Concerto.

TK: How was the Liebermann?

OW: It was good; I think it was good. Mr. Liebermann was supposed to come, but he didn't, so I got all freaked out for nothing.

TK: And you had never played it for him?

OW: No. It was really exhausting to play: there were octaves everywhere, and these jumps. It's a romantic concerto, with all these different tonalities, but not atonal, and it's very exotic-sounding. I enjoyed playing the concerto a lot.

TK: You know that he's a Juilliard alumnus.

OW: Yes, and he was good friends with Stephen Hough at Juilliard, who premiered the concerto and has recorded it.

TK: And after the Liebermann?

OW: I played a recital in Florida, then went home for a while. Then I went to Interlochen, where I had been a camper seven years ago, and played a recital there. After the recital, two of my friends—who had been in my cabin seven years ago—came up to me, and I recognized them both. Of course, both of their names were Josh, so it was easy to remember! Then I went home, then to California, to a little place called San Luis Obispo.

TK: Oh, yes—where Jeffrey Kahane resides, another Juilliard piano alumnus.

OW: Yes, but the conductor I played with there was Clifton Swanson, the director of the Mozart Festival.

TK: Wow, that was a busy summer of piano playing!

OW: But the best part of the summer came at the end... when my brother and I went to Disneyland! I had remembered going when I was seven, but this time was so much more thrilling.

TK: What was your favorite ride?

OW: Definitely the Pirates of the Caribbean. If I recall the old version correctly, it's now more "P.C."—they took out the torture chamber. I remember seeing a pirate being stretched on the rack—it formed an important and vivid disciplinary image for much of my childhood, but he was gone this time. And, of course, the animatronics are a lot more sophisticated now. It was a completely different experience; I was more aware of the details this time around. The atmosphere is really great; you can smell salt in the air. I could imagine myself getting out of the boat and starting a conversation with the pirates—a friendly one, of course—and living the life of a seafarer... if the pianist thing didn't work out.