THE GILMORE FINDS ITS YOUNGEST, AND ITS QUIETEST

The Gilmore is, in its ordinary form, the world's quietest prize. Its jury is anonymous, its process is anonymous, and its recipients, in most years, do not know they are being considered until the letter arrives at the front door, unannounced, on a Tuesday. The Gilmore Young Artist Award, the smaller of the Gilmore's two categories, has been given, since 1991, to pianists under twenty-two. This year the jury has, for the first time in the award's history, given it to a pianist who is, on the day of the announcement, in eighth grade.

“I would like to say that I understand what the letter you sent me means. I don't, yet. I am going to spend some time with it. Thank you for writing it.”

The letter, per the Gilmore's own communications office, was couriered to Loudoun County on the morning of the announcement. It was, per its own text, a two-page citation, and a bank note in the amount of the award's cash prize, made out in Luca STARR's name. The letter arrived at the farmhouse at nine in the morning. STARR, per his sister, opened it at the kitchen table, read it twice, and then walked, without speaking, to the piano, and sat at it, without playing, for about twenty minutes. Then he came back to the table, picked up a pen, and wrote the letter above.

The Gilmore jury does not, ordinarily, comment on its own votes. This year, per a joint statement issued by the award's director, the jury has, for the first time in the award's history, chosen to make one observation on the record. The observation, in full, is that the jury has, over the course of eighteen months of anonymous listening at concerts on three continents, heard STARR play in six halls, and that in each of those six halls, the same effect was observed: that the room, in the last piece of the recital, stopped moving. “We consider this,” the statement reads, “the highest form of recognition a room can offer a musician. In our judgment, LUCA STARR is a musician for whom rooms stop moving.”

The Gilmore's process is famously slow. Jurors, chosen anonymously by the award's director, sit through, in the ordinary year, upwards of a hundred recitals, on their own time, in halls the artists themselves do not know are being watched. STARR is, per the same statement, the first pianist in the award's history to have been considered from his first eligible age of eleven, and to have been named at thirteen. The jury, per its own words, was “in no hurry, and, then, in the last twelve months, in a hurry.”

The Gilmore will present the award at the Kalamazoo festival in May. STARR has, per his sister, agreed to attend, on the condition that he not, at the presentation itself, be asked to play. He has, however, agreed to program a full-length recital at the festival, on a separate evening, as part of the award's traditional Young Artist recital series. He has told the festival, per his sister, that he will program the recital himself, that he will play from memory, and that he will not, on the day, take questions.

The bank note, per Amara, has not yet been cashed. STARR has, per his sister, asked if it can be endowed, in his name, to the piano program at his old teacher's school in Alexandria. Arrangements are being made.