The winner of the Seventeenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition won鈥檛 be named until Saturday. But right now, one thing is certain: It won鈥檛 be a woman.
Only two women, Olga Kern and Cristina Ortiz, have ever won in the competition鈥檚 more than 60-year history. And it will be at least another four years before that changes.
The Cliburn is not unusual in this respect.
Only two women have won the Leeds and Queen Elisabeth competitions, and only one woman has won the Tchaikovsky as of November 2024, compiled by Pianists for Alternatively Sized Keyboards.
One size might not fit all
But some music professionals said the issue isn鈥檛 gender. Pianists with small hands, both men and women, are at a disadvantage. And they offer a potential solution.
鈥淧iano keyboards come in one size, people don鈥檛,鈥� wrote Rhonda Boyle, who analyzed the handspans, or distance between the thumb and pinky, of 473 pianists.
Boyle, one of the cofounders of Pianists for Alternatively Sized Keyboards, and her coauthors, that of the pianists surveyed, men have a handspan of 8.9 inches on average, compared to a 7.9-inch span among women.
That extra inch might not sound like much, but it makes a world of a difference to pianists who seek precision, control and fluidity in their performances.
Leveling the playing field
Carol Leone, chair of piano studies at Southern Methodist University, has smaller hands. She that she wishes was available to more pianists: stretto pianos. Stretto, or 鈥渘arrow鈥� in Italian, refers to a smaller set of piano keys.
鈥淲hat we鈥檙e trying to do is even the playing field,鈥� Leone said.
Instead of a standard 6.5-inch octave, adult stretto sizes can be 6- or 5.5-inch octaves.
The action is a mechanism inside the piano that involves its hammers and keys, and the stretto "action" can be loaded into a regular acoustic piano. The change takes about five minutes, Leone said.
But these are not well known, nor are they widely available.
鈥淧eople just don't know about it,鈥� said Hannah Reimann, a pianist and CEO of Stretto Piano Events, Inc. 鈥淚 think what it will take is some more participation from the manufacturers, and it will take raising awareness and it'll take a third party like us to help get it off the ground.鈥�
Reimann formed the nonprofit to showcase stretto pianos and allow more people the opportunity to try one out.
鈥淭here are plenty of naysayers out there, but they don't really have the kind of familiarity that we have. They don't have the information or the knowledge or the experience,鈥� she said. 鈥淥nce people hear people playing concerts, there's really no argument, you know?鈥�
The smaller keyboards allow artists with small hands to expand their repertoire without risking injury.
鈥淲hen I sat down at one of these pianos for the first time, it was life-changing,鈥� said Leone.
She plays on all three sizes, choosing the keys based on the work she is performing.
But the varying sizes are not something that the Cliburn plans to offer its contestants, CEO Jacques Marquis said.
Facing "real life" conditions
鈥淏ecause we're launching careers of young musicians and the winners will go on a tour for the next three years and we're booking something like 250 to 300 concerts, we always apply the real-life conditions,鈥� he said.
And most concert halls aren鈥檛 going to have strettos.
鈥淎nd the real-life condition is a pianist will not travel with his piano. He will take the piano that's [available at the venue]. And we have stories of people over the years who were traveling with the piano, but that's like one in a million,鈥� Marquis said.
While only two women have taken the top prize at the Cliburn, several others have medaled.
Men tend to outnumber women in the applicant pool, Marquis said. In this competition cycle, there were 340 applicants. 89 were women.
The nine-person jury for this year鈥檚 competition included five women.
Yanjun Chen, is a 23-year-old Cliburn semifinalist from China.
She has never played a stretto piano, and she isn鈥檛 sure she鈥檇 use one for a competition after spending years studying on a standard set of keys.
But, as someone who sometimes wishes she had bigger hands, she鈥檇 like to try one out.
鈥淚'm interested. I was always wondering what if the keyboards are smaller and how would I be able to project more sounds,鈥� she said.
By getting more stretto pianos into music schools around the world, Leone hopes that more pianists will have the opportunity to try out different sizes.
鈥淭here's nothing wrong with an instrument fitting the musician,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he pianos with these keyboards are identical in every other way. No one can even tell.鈥�
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