GRAMOPHONE'S YOUNGEST NAMED ARTIST

Gramophone's Young Artist of the Year is, historically, a slow prize. Its winners have tended to be artists in their early twenties, three or four records into a career, on the third or fourth turn of a major-label contract. This year the panel has voted for a thirteen-year-old, working in a living room in Virginia, on no label at all. It is the youngest recipient in the fifty-year history of the category. It is also, per the panel's own private note, one of the least argued-about votes it has ever taken.

“I have listened to Luca STARR on and off for two years. I have not, in that time, heard him play a note that he did not mean. I do not know a great many adults about whom I could say that.”

The panel's own citation, which is published in this month's issue, calls The Bottom of the Ocean “the most patient debut recital record of the modern era,” and calls STARR himself “a musician who has, at thirteen, already made his peace with silence, and, therefore, with sound.” The citation was drafted by our critic Michael Church, then edited, at his request, by seven other members of the panel. All eight signed it.

STARR gave, this year, a small handful of recitals in front of Gramophone-affiliated critics, including a Wigmore Hall lunchtime recital in November that we reviewed in these pages under the headline “The Room Was Listening.” The Wigmore recital is, per two of the jurors, the performance that decided the vote. STARR walked out, alone, in a suit that had not, at that stage, been altered from the one he had worn to the Kennedy Center. He played, from memory, one Bach two-part invention, one Debussy prelude, and the entirety of his own “A Small Weather.” He bowed twice, briefly. He did not play an encore. He did not, at the reception afterward, drink a glass of anything but water. He shook the hand of every person who offered one.

What is striking about the Gramophone vote, in the context of this year, is that it comes from the wing of the industry that has, historically, been least susceptible to the pop-crossover story. The Gramophone panel is a room of critics who have, in some cases, been reviewing recitals since STARR's father was in primary school. They are not moved by the Hot 100. They are not moved by the Grammy sweep. They are, in most cases, actively suspicious of it. The vote, per two panelists we spoke to on background, was not for the tour, or for the record sales, or for the sweep. It was for the Wigmore recital.

STARR, reached at home in Loudoun County the morning after the citation was published, was told the news by his sister. He said, per Amara, “Please tell Mr. Church I read his review, and I read it twice.” He then asked if he could go practice. He was allowed to. He did.

The award will be presented at the Gramophone Awards ceremony in London in October. STARR has, per his sister, agreed to attend, on the condition that he be allowed to sit at the back of the hall, and that he not, this once, be asked to play.