Van Cliburn (1934 – 2013) was the first American contestant ever to win the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and he did it in 1958 – right in the middle of the 'Cold War'. His victory caused a sensation; the twenty-four-yearold was celebrated like a modern-day pop star. The recording he subsequently made in New York of Tchaikovsky/s Piano Concerto op. 23 remains to this day one of the best-selling records in the history of classical music. Van Cliburn retired almost entirely from active concert life in 1978 and died in 2013 of bone-marrow cancer. He was born Harvey Lavan, jr. in the state of Louisiana and received his piano training up to the age of 17 from his mother, a pianist who had learnt from the great Arthur Friedheim, a pupil of Liszt. He won numerous competitions both as a child and as an adolescent, and after winning first prize at the National Musical Festival in New York/s Carnegie Hall he initially continued his studies at the Juilliard School of Music.
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