The University of Oregon Ducks football team fell short in the college football playoffs, and it is too soon to tell how the UO men’s and women’s basketball teams will do in their respective postseasons. But this school year, one Duck won a championship, just not in sports.
Last fall, University of Oregon School of Music and Dance doctoral student and instructor in piano performance Juan Avendaño was awarded first place in the advanced category at the 2024 American Protégé International Competition of Romantic Music — his prize: a performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall last December.
On March 7, Avendaño performs a Maurice Ravel recital, celebrating the French composer’s birthday, at Beall Concert Hall on the UO campus.
Avendaño won the annual international competition performing a piece by romantic-era French composer Gabriel Fauré and then bent the rules, convincing judges to allow him to perform George Gershwin’s “Embraceable You” written in 1929 — a romantic song, no doubt, just not one written in the romantic era.
Developed in the 19th century, romantic classical music pushed “the boundaries of tonalism,” according to Avendaño. Beethoven and Brahms are associated with the style.
Most interested in the personal voice of the composers, romantic music, he says, paved the way for atonal 20th-century music and popular jazz-age classical composers like Gershwin.
When asked about music competitions like the American Protégé contest, Avendaño quotes early 20th-century Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, who said, “Competitions are for horses, not artists.” But Avendaño says they’re a résumé necessity for young performers like him.
Avendaño says he chose Gershwin for an unexpected change of pace. He says, “I could have room to bring my interpretation,” rather than play more familiar work from romantic composers like Chopin or Liszt.
Avendaño was born in Colombia and started playing rather late for a typical concert pianist: At the ripe old age of 15, he knew right away he wanted to devote his life to the instrument. He did his undergraduate work in his home country and then came to the United States.
He received his master’s in piano performance from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo before coming to Oregon for a doctorate in piano performance and yet another master’s degree in collaborative piano — which means, as Avendaño explains, performing any piece of music with piano and another instrument, especially voice — a unique degree offering at the UO which Avendaño says attracted him to Eugene.
Avendaño won the Protégé contest with a pre-recorded YouTube video of his performance. Like all classical competitions, he didn’t know in advance what his score would be based on.
According to Avendaño, some judges prioritize an exact reproduction of what’s written in the score, while others place more value on expression. Not only did Avendaño not know which way the judges would rate his performance, he didn’t even know who the judges were when he signed up.
UO Professor of Piano and Chair of Keyboard Alexandre Dossin has closely followed Avendaño’s career, from his time performing at Latin American classical music festivals, through his graduate work in Michigan, and finally to Eugene.
In an email with Eugene Weekly, Dossin says Avendaño’s lyrical qualities set him apart in the American Protégé competition from “fortists” — insider baseball pianist jargon, he says, for pianists who can only play “loud.”
“Preparation for such a competition requires endless hours of practice until the works are part of who we are,” Dossin adds. “More often than not, pianists memorize the works, which requires a deep understanding of the musical language,” in both technical and psychological terms. “Juan is a master at that,” Dossin says.
Avendaño has played in large performance halls before and performs in Eugene with the Eugene Symphony and the Oregon Mozart Players, among other ensembles. Still, he’d never performed at a place with as much prestige and history as New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Describing the experience, Avendaño remembers thinking, “I will try to enjoy as much as possible this experience because I don’t know if it’s going to happen again. I had so much respect for the space, but I just wanted to enjoy the sound of the piano.”