For the last 10 days young musicians have been playing their hearts out for the privilege of competing in the finals of RTE's Musician of the Future Competition. The five successful competitors all stepped out in front of the National Symphony Orchestra under Colman Pearce last night in a piece of their own choice.
The most interesting player was David McGrory, the 19year-old pianist. He approached Liszt's First Piano Concerto with a sense of musical confidence expressed thr ough an unmistakable desire to balance the brilliance and bravura with touches of gentle reflectiveness. Not everything fell tidily into place for him, but the thoughtful approach clearly marked him as one of the most distinctive personalities among young Irish pianists.
Violinist Cora Venus Lunny (16), who played the opening movement of Paganini's First Concerto, was easily the most spectacular and most remarkably gifted of the finalists. There is a dynamism and electricity in her playing which is rare at the best of times, and unique in my experience in an Irish violinist in music of this difficulty. There is also, though, an unbending quality in her music-making, a rhythmic fixity in particular, which served to point up rather than mask the limitations of Paganini's musical invention.
The three other finalists all made honourable showings. Flautist Riona O Duinnin (22), in the Ibert Concerto, and organist Michael Quinn (20), in Poulenc, both showed fine control but were low in expressive charge. Horn-player John Killian Ryan (18), in Strauss's Second Concerto, revealed more warmth but also greater momentary fallibility.
Making a popular choice, the jury awarded the £6,000 first prize to Lunny. Other competition prizes went to Rob Canning (Composer of the Future), mezzo soprano Doreen Curran (Singer of the Future) and the Cork School of Music Piano Quintet (RTE Ensemble Prize).
