That one time at piano camp... (Oberlin 2025)

TheBoringPianist · 2025-07-21T06:49:25+00:00

As some people on PT may know, I started competing in adult amateur piano competitions last year after a long hiatus and have been really enjoying this newfo...

PianogrlNW

TheBoringPianist Congratulations! Will we be able to watch your program?

twocats

TheBoringPianist congrats, that's awesome!!! I hope you share videos of your playing!!

Edit: @PianogrlNW I just realized that the livestream links in the first post have all the videos on YouTube!

rsl12

Amazing! Congratulations!

ShiroKuro

TheBoringPianist I ended up winning!

OMG Congratulations 🎉🎈 🎉 Wonderful!!!

Re videos, when you have a minute, could you point us to where to start the videos? It looks like the livestream videos are all very long and I’d like to watch your programs first.

twocats

ShiroKuro Re videos, when you have a minute, could you point us to where to start the videos? It looks like the livestream videos are all very long

Check out the description, there are time stamps for each performer! I believe our friends here are the first two 🙂

@TheBoringPianist did a great job with the livestream, it sounds great and usually they don't bother putting in timestamps!

iternabe

TheBoringPianist Congratulations! 🍾🎊🎉

ShiroKuro

twocats Check out the description, there are time stamps for each performer!

Oh wow, I totally missed that, thank you!

And yes, @TheBoringPianist you certainly did a great job with the livestreams and the time stamps! That's a lovely present for us here! 🙂

twocats

I listened to some (not all entire performances) of the first two rounds so far. @Harpuia you played very musically and @TheBoringPianist you were absolutely solid and confident and definitely the most "professional sounding" performer. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of amateur pianists are tentative with bringing out melody lines, but you really made them sing out!

I'm curious who else placed, I have some guesses so far on two other pianists who I thought stood out.

Also curious what the livestream setup was, it sounded pretty good! And if you all got notes from the jury about your performances 🙂

PianogrlNW

TheBoringPianist I really liked your programming. Many of your pieces were new to me and I especially liked the William Grant Still piece, Summerland. It is refreshing to see that inventive programming is rewarded.

twocats I listened to maybe 6 of the performances and my thoughts were that the performances overall were at a higher level than I’ve heard at the Boston (especially the silver stream) and WIPAC competitions. I didn’t hear any performances that sounded amateurish, tentative, or that the melody did not come through.

TheBoringPianist

twocats Also curious what the livestream setup was, it sounded pretty good!

Audio is from a Zoom Q2n-4k, video for semifinals and finals is from my iPhone 13. Combined together in OBS (when I tried without OBS, MacOS was automatically adjusting the gain so everything sounded terrible)

twocats I'm curious who else placed

Carl di Casoli placed second and Robert Finley placed third.

PianogrlNW I especially liked the William Grant Still piece, Summerland

Fun fact: William Grant Still studied composition at Oberlin. My little tribute to the organizers.

twocats I no longer feel like because a passage is marked "p" that the melody also needs to be quiet, as long as the general feeling and supporting accompaniment is quiet.

funny story there, my teacher loves to point it out on the score and ask me "it says p. what does that mean?" "piano" "no... project". Of course, no rule is universal.

twocats

Also of course I want to hear about the dorm life! I know you're super busy but wanted to ask all the questions while they're in my mind 🙂

twocats

PianogrlNW I didn’t hear any performances that sounded amateurish, tentative, or that the melody did not come through.

Yes, the playing level was quite high!

What I mean by "a lot of amateur pianists are tentative with bringing out melody lines" isn't that they don't bring out the melody, but professional pianists bring them out far more, generally speaking. It's something I've become very aware of in the past few years. I no longer feel like because a passage is marked "p" that the melody also needs to be quiet, as long as the general feeling and supporting accompaniment is quiet.

@TheBoringPianist and @Harpuia both played very well and should be proud!

twocats

TheBoringPianist Audio is from a Zoom Q2n-4k, video for semifinals and finals is from my iPhone 13.

You put a lot of work into it and it shows!! Every time I have to make a nice quality video it stresses me out because it takes a lot of time and effort to get the final result. I'm sure everyone is grateful that you did this for the competition 🙂

The other placements were what I guessed. Carl di Casoli played a really great final. You must be so thrilled, you'll get to play a recital at Oberlin!

TheBoringPianist funny story there, my teacher loves to point it out on the score and ask me "it says p. what does that mean?" "piano" "no... project". Of course, no rule is universal.

Haha! If this is the teacher with all the funny sayings, add this to the list! This rule does hold for Chopin and I've been listening to quite a lot of his music 🙂

ShiroKuro

TheBoringPianist Saturday, July 26 @ 1:30pm–4:00pm ET: Preliminary Round (10 min)
Sunday, July 27 @ 1:30pm–5:00pm ET: Semifinal Round (15 min)
Monday, July 28 @ 1:30pm–5:00pm ET: Final Round (30 min)

Ok, so far I've listened to @TheBoringPianist 's pieces in the preliminary round (then I'll listen to the other rounds, and then I'll go back and listen to the other pianists).

Anyway, truly lovely playing!! (not boring at all! 😃

I'm looking forward to the rest of your pieces! 🙂

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