As requested by @twocats, starting a thread about my experience participating in the WIPAC competition this year lol. I'm not sure what people are interested in so I'll just kind of ramble and if people have additional questions feel free to ask. Apologies for the length; as the saying goes, "I have not had time to make it shorter." Or maybe TheBoringPianist refers to when I start talking.
Background
WIPAC, held in Washington DC, is one of the longest running competitions geared towards non-professional pianists. The format is 3 rounds: a 15-min preliminary round, 20-min semifinal round, and 25-min final round, with each round roughly cutting the number of competitors in half (23 > 12 > 6 this year). I had competed in Paris and the silver stream at Boston earlier this year, which only required 30 minutes of total music.
Planning & Preparation
The silver stream at Boston only required 30 minutes of repertoire, so I figured I had to pull together 30 more minutes from a combination of (a) pieces I've played recently and are still mostly in muscle memory, (b) pieces I've played many years ago and can be brought back to performance standard reasonably quickly, and (c) new rep to learn! My teacher wanted to get rid of the Medtner Sonata Tragica that was my weakest piece in Boston, so now I needed 40 minutes of additional music. We discussed a couple options (including the Franck Prelude Fugue & Variation) and ended up settling on a tentative program including 21 min. of old rep to resurrect (Prokofiev Sonata #6 4th mvmt, Chopin Scherzo #3, Liebermann Nocturne #4), and 16 min. of completely new repertoire (Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor, Haydn Sonata in G major Hob. XVI:40, Scarlatti Sonata in G major K14, Gershwin-Wild Embraceable You virtuoso etude). Just 6.5 weeks to prepare!
I practiced anywhere between 0.5–2 hrs a day every day for the 6.5 weeks leading up to the competition. Very quickly, I eliminated the Gershwin-Wild etude from the program as too difficult to pull together in time. Then I added the Franck in because I couldn't stand to not learn the piece right away, dropping Bach-Siloti (didn't need another soulful B minor piece) and Scarlatti (since I didn't need the extra time anymore). 3 weeks before competition, I realized there was no way I'd have Liebermann ready in time and spent a couple days learning the Russell Jamaican Dance No. 2 instead, a very technically easy (ABRSM Grade 7) but pretty little piece that served as a nice contrasting bridge between Haydn and Prokofiev. Even at my final lesson a week before the competition, things were pretty shaky — after I played through my entire program, my teacher paused for a moment and asked, "Are you still allowed to change your program?" 😅. We didn't end up changing anything, but I didn't blame him for considering it. Also, I forgot to practice the Scherzo until the week of the competition, figuring my chances of making the finals were pretty slim, but I played it in high school and it's never completely left my fingers.
Competition
Program Book (schedule, bios, repertoire)
Day 0
The first (and usually optional) event at these competitions is often a welcome reception of some kind. Technically, I didn't need to come until the next day, but the welcome reception is fun because meeting the other competitors is the best part of attending a competition after getting to play for people on some really nice pianos. Plus, I got lucky and got some spectacular views of the National Mall on the River Visual approach to RWY 19 at DCA.
In an interesting twist, there was a piano at the reception and the organizers encouraged people to play a short piece during the reception. I declined since I had spent my entire time preparing competition repertoire and had nothing else really ready, but I noticed some other competitors ended up playing pieces from their program. Not sure that would have been OK if there were also jurors in attendance but 🤷🏻♀️.
Days 1–2: Preliminaries
The preliminary round was split across two days so the jurors wouldn't have to listen to 6 hours of music in a single day and leave wanting to kill us all. I was scheduled for late morning on the second day so I spent the first day getting used to the facility, checking out the piano/room where the preliminaries were held, figuring out where I could put my video recorder, and practicing my preliminary/semifinal rounds. Some people recommend not listening to any competitors before you perform, but honestly I'm partially here to see my piano friends so I listened to almost every single person. It also helps me understand a little more about how the piano and room sound. While listening, I noticed that the piano (while a very nice 7-ft Steinway B) was sounding a little big for the room, which was a little muddy as well, so I noticed some competitors struggling with LH/RH balance and clarity. That's a note to self: less LH, more melody, less pedal, take more time, more touch. To be fair, these are almost always good guidelines to follow anyways, but the reinforcement is good. Also, found a fantastic pastrami sandwich nearby. Definitely not something to eat pre-performance though, it will put you to sleep! After the day's performances, grabbed dinner/drinks with some of the other competitors.
After Day 1, I felt pretty good and decided I should try to sleep early (10pm) for once instead of going out for a drink. Unfortunately, coming from the West Coast, my body interpreted that as a late afternoon nap — I woke up at 1am and couldn't fall back asleep until 4am. Not great. When I woke up, there was also a Flash Flood Warning and Tornado Watch in effect (courtesy of the remnants of Hurricane Debby). Luckily, the rain stopped so I could walk over to the venue. I could tell in my morning practice session that the lack of sleep was getting to me — my arms/hands were getting tired more quickly than usual — so I tried not to practice too much before my performance.
Kapustin - Concert Etude Op. 40, No. 2 "Reverie"
Janáček - 1. X. 1905: i. Předtucha (Foreboding)
Price - Clouds
Moszkowski - Mousse de Champagne (from 6 Morceaux, Op. 93, No. 6)
The actual performance itself went alright. Made a bunch of small technical errors all over and had a huge mental blank in Clouds but managed to keep the melody going while my left hand struggled to figure out where it was supposed to be, and I managed to do some new musical things that I liked. Public performance always teaches you new mistakes you didn't know you could make so I've just kind of resigned myself to it. After all the preliminaries, they announced the 12 semifinalists. I had created my own list of people I considered defensible to advance based on the performances I heard and it was 14 names long so after the 10th name was called I started going through the "ah, this wasn't your time, next time you'll have more practice" coping routine lol. Then they called my name too. (fwiw, 11 of the 12 semifinalists were on my list). After the announcements, a few of us stayed behind to practice playing our semifinal programs for each other (while we're competitors, we're all Team Piano!) and grabbed drinks afterwards.
Day 3: Semifinals
My slot wasn't until 4:50pm but I showed up in the morning to get some practice in listen in on the master class, and listen to the other semifinalists. I think this is the single longest day as 12 x 20 = 4 hours of music vs. 3 hrs for each preliminary day and the finals.
Haydn - Sonata in G Major, Hob. XVI: 40
Russell - Jamaican Dance No. 2
Prokofiev - Sonata No. 6, Op. 82: iv. Vivace
Honestly, I don't have much to complain about with my performance other than incidental technical errors. Even then, almost all of the semifinalists played well (iykyk) so I wasn't sure if I would advance — but this time they called my name first.
Now I had a dilemma. I had already started having misgivings about including Scherzo 3 in my finals program after hearing Illya (another finalist) play it during his preliminary round. I considered switching it out for the Medtner Sonata Tragica but told myself I wouldn't worry about it until I made the finals. Now that I had made the finals, it was time to worry. What it came down to was roughly, "if both are going to be messy, maybe I should go with the less well-known piece". It's hard to say! In Boston, the obscurity of the Medtner was one of several factors that kept me off the winner's podium for the silver stream. I played both, couldn't decide, and told myself I still had time to make a decision.
Day 4: Finals
I practiced both again in the morning and still couldn't decide before heading off to the final round venue. The final round is held at a different venue and with a different piano: a 9-ft Steinway D. The hall appears to be some kind of private members-only social club normally. When I got there, the organizers were already in a frenzy of preparation, and at that time I pretty much decided I would keep the Scherzo through inaction (a bad habit of mine).
Franck (arr. Bauer) - Prélude, Fugue et Variation, Op. 18
Clementi - Sonata in G major, Op. 37 No. 2: i. Allegro
Chopin - Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor, Op. 39
Honestly I'm only reasonably satisfied with my Clementi, which I felt like I rushed less than I did in Boston and added more finger articulation (feedback from one of the Boston jurors). The Franck showed its relative underpreparedness under the stress of performance, and there were a couple moments where I just mentally blanked and was like "where am I? what am I even doing? this is going nowhere, i'm starting and stopping", and, well, the Chopin was what it was. It's a high floor piece for me — that's about as bad as it will ever sound even if I don't practice it for months — but I need to put in more work if I want to take it to the level it needs to be for a final round. I kind of regret not switching it for the Medtner, but the Medtner would have also been the weakest link so not sure it would have made a difference.
Naturally, I didn't place. 1st place was clear to everyone, and 2nd/3rd were the ones I expected as well (even if I thought I had the slightest chance of sneaking in). I won a couple special awards though! The first was the Most Imaginative Programming award, which I figured I definitely had a shot at going into the competition. The second special award I got was Best Classical Performance for my Haydn in the semifinals. I figured I had a chance for that one as well, but the 1st place winner also played a very nice Haydn sonata in the semifinals so I wouldn't have been surprised to not get it. People were pretty surprised to learn that I had only started the Haydn 4 weeks prior. The rest of the evening was spent celebrating and chatting with other competitors before we said our final goodbyes (followed by a late-night solo trip to a bar to reflect on what I could have done better).
Closing Thoughts
I got some very nice comments from audience members, fellow competitors, and jurors! Multiple people mentioned my coloring, touch, and musicality as strengths, and I really have my current teacher (the source of my signature quote) to thank for vastly improving my sound over the past 4 months of lessons (also: spending more time playing on quality acoustic grand pianos). I think I want to try to lean into some of these strengths more as I find them.
While WIPAC is not as well-organized as Boston, it's still more organized than Paris. I'm glad I brought my own video recorder, though — the official recordings have improper gain settings so the audio clips in all the files, which ruins them. Next up: San Diego in June 2025! Will have some new repertoire ready for that competition but might not be able to resist reusing a couple of the pieces from this year.
