The second time around, Michael Davidman takes home the APA prize

Michael Davidman holds fellowship trophy as Chris
Williams basks in 2025 APA's successful conclusion. 

A feeling of "this is well-deserved" hit me immediately when Michael Davidman was declared the winner of the American Piano Awards Saturday night at Hilbert Circle Theatre.

I lack familiarity with his performance at each stage since the five finalists in the classical piano competition were announced last year. But I brought to his appearance in the 2025 competition my favorable impression of his playing as a finalist in the 2021 APA.

Now a student of Stanislav Ioudenitch at the Reina Sofia School of Music in Madrid, Spain, the 28-year-old New Yorker has a master's degree from Juilliard and a doctorate at Park University's International Center for Music. He accepted the Christel DeHaan Fellowship in Classical Piano at the end of two nights of finals from Chris Williams, APA's president and CEO.

With APA career support, a debut recording, a four-week residency at the University of Indianapolis, an American recital tour, and media assistance, the fellowship amounts to more than $200,000, the organization estimates. All five finalists receive a cash award of $25,000 each. 

Two of them were heard in concerto performances Saturday with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted hy JoAnn Falletta. Avery Gagliano opened the program with a brilliant account of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, op. 11. Gagliano's playing was fastidious and amply expressive. She had firm control but avoided seeming inhibited: her rubato (rhythmic freedom in the right hand, precision in the left) was masterly. 

The eccentric Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, no fan of Chopin, liked to quip that the trailblazing Polish composer was "the genius of the right hand." Gagliano allowed that quality to shine in her interpretation. The orchestra was right with her. Changes of momentum and expressive direction were well-coordinated under Falletta's guidance. 

With Sasha Kasman Laude, the audience got to hear Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor for the second night in a row. Davidman had played it with thunderous authority and loads of interpretive nuance on his way to the competition's top prize. 

One of the hazards of musical competitions is that the opportunity to compare two performances of the same piece by different artists nudges the listener to judge who was better. That diminishes the freedom of response listeners may have in the normal concert milieu. If different light is shed on a masterpiece by two different interpreters, it's much healthier to reflect on that than to judge which soloist is superior. Somehow that decision can thrust the work itself into the shadows. 

I found both performances satisfactory in shedding light on significant aspects of Rachmaninoff. Kasman Laude's flowing vivacity in the first movement yielded to a wistful mood with the second theme. There was plenty of yearning applied to the solo part, and even the powerful cadenza suggested the soloist found it effective to convey that she was holding back from ultimate intensity. Davidman had, on the other hand, been freer about displaying the solo's full power, as he did even in passages with the orchestra matching him in force.

With Kasman Laude, Falletta had the orchestra holding on to phrases in the second movement, as if seconding the nostalgia suggested by the piano. The finale was launched at a faster tempo than I remember from Davidman's account, and the contrasting slow music seemed slower during this second performance. This was a bracing approach to a finale that otherwise can strike the ear as too fascinated with its own surges of energy to be good for the music. Yet that manner came naturally to Davidman, and the excitement it produced swept everything before it. 

The contrast proved to be a recipe for twofold success, though I won't mind not hearing this concerto again anytime soon. But it's no wonder that irrepressible live-stream host Angela Brown, Indianapolis' authentic operatic diva, exulted about both "Rach 3" performances to the international audience.