Concert
Artists Guild Celebrates 50 Years
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Recent CAG winners
Scott Lee and
Jennifer Koh.
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This year’s Concert Artist’s Guild competition, held
March 26–April 2, marks the 50th year that this nonprofit organization
has helped young musicians get started in the professional world.
From some splashy early vocal winners, including soprano Evelyn Lear
in 1952 and mezzo Shirley Verrett in 1957, the contest has evolved
into an extremely string-friendly one, judging both soloists and ensembles.
Among well-known past winners are violinists Ani Kavafian (1971) and
Eugene Drucker of the Emerson Quartet (1974); cellists Toby Saks,
founding director of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival (1960), Yehuda
Hanani (1967), and a teenaged Ofra Harnoy (1980); and ensembles including
the Alexander String Quartet (1980) and the Pacifica String Quartet
(1997).
The CAG helps musicians by offering aid and experience
rather than a large purse to players. First-prize winners of each
competition receive a $1,000 cash award, a New York City recital on
the CAG series, a commission from the composer of the winner’s choice,
and free management for two years following the competition. The management
department at CAG books as many concert engagements as possible for
the winner, but the winner pays no commission to the CAG for the fees
on these engagements. However, the CAG does not disperse funds to
the winners other than the initial award.
After two years, if the winner remains on the CAG
roster, the winner then pays a ten percent commission for fees on
all engagements booked by the CAG managers. This is a reduced commission,
as "commercial" management normally takes 15 percent. Nathan
Wedeen Management Award winners receive a New York City recital on
the CAG series and management for one year following the competition,
but must pay a ten percent commission on all fees for engagements
booked by the CAG. All donations and grants and commissions on fees
go to support the CAG’s various programs, including the management
department and its activities, composer commissions, and the New York
Recital Series.
Despite a venerable roster of past winners, the CAG,
which is run by president Richard S. Weinert and artist managers Brian
Bumby and Elan Gore, believes that recent winners are among
the most exciting and promising of the organization’s half-century.
One such is violist Scott Lee, now 20, who was a finalist in the 1994
competition when he was only 15, and won the Nathan Weeden management
award in 1996. A native of Taipei, Lee has studied with Donald McInnes
and Michael Tree of the Guarneri Quartet. His emotionally expressive
tone suggests that he might grow into the kind of ideal violist represented
by Tabea Zimmermann in the current generation of superstars. Chatting
on the phone during a rare break from rehearsals and performances,
Lee confides that the CAG made a real difference for him. "It’s
very hard for young artists today. It’s not like 50 years ago, when
if you won the Tchaikovsky Competition, you were accepted. Now there
are lots of competitions and winning one will not ensure you a career."
Lee points out that most competitions offer only cash awards, whereas
the CAG "gives a little cash prize but, more important, gets
you engagements. Even if you don’t make it right away, the CAG still
tries to help find you commercial management."
Speaking with wisdom beyond his years, Lee concludes,
"The music world, especially chamber music, works through connections.
The CAG roster has lots of great musicians who get to know each other
and play music together. In other competitions, you don’t get to know
the other prizewinners." Nowadays Lee regularly performs with
the Amelia and Pacifica Quartets, fellow CAG honorees.
Outside observers may not always be fully aware of
how much the CAG means to young artists. Veteran critic Harris Goldsmith,
a former longtime judge for CAG competitions, objects, "The CAG
is good, but relatively unnoticed. Far more influential is the Young
Concert Artists award, which has so much more clout. Although I must
say I don’t like some of the YCA winners, and [feel that] the YCA
sometimes ignores worthy talent, it is the best-connected competition."
If this analysis is accurate, it seems not to impress
such grateful winners as violinist Jennifer Koh (1994). Koh recalls,
"At the time I won the CAG, I was a freshman English major at
Oberlin College. I didn’t come from a musical family, and things like
working with a manager, or even taking pictures and having a bio,
were new to me. A month after the CAG prize, I won the Tchaikovsky
Competition, and I was glad to have guidance from people who understood
that I needed to take time for studies in the humanities." After
a year and a half with the CAG, Koh switched to Colbert Artists Management,
which still represents her.
As to the comparative importance of the CAG and YCA
awards, Koh says, "At the time, I just thought both organizations
were going for the same sort of goals, to support up-and-coming artists,
to teach them the ropes and protect them a bit. I was just happy to
be part of it." Koh, who will have a new CD of violin chaconnes
coming out from Cedille Records in September, still sounds delighted
with the way things worked out.
Another recent success story is the Icelandic-born
violinist Judith Ingolfsson (1998). She explains, "I won the
1998 Indianapolis International Violin Competition six months after
winning the CAG, so the requests for concerts could be dealt with
very efficiently. The CAG also introduced me to many aspects of the
music business that we as musicians really don’t learn about in school.
They helped prepare me for the ‘real world’ and the transition to
commercial management."
It is such sustained commitment to an artist’s development
that is perhaps most impressive of all the Concert Artist Guild’s
achievements.
—Benjamin Ivry
