{"id":10738,"date":"2018-08-28T15:24:32","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T22:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=10738"},"modified":"2018-08-28T15:24:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T22:24:50","slug":"marko-topchii-inside-the-world-of-one-of-the-most-successful-and-widely-travelled-competitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/marko-topchii-inside-the-world-of-one-of-the-most-successful-and-widely-travelled-competitors\/","title":{"rendered":"Marko Topchii: Inside the World of One of the Most Successful and Widely Travelled Competitors"},"content":{"rendered":"
BY BLAIR JACKSON | FROM THE FALL 2018 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR<\/a><\/h6>\n

A year ago, when we decided we would devote one of our 2018 Special Focus sections to \u201cThe Competition Life,\u201d the name that immediately popped into my head as the person who best embodies that concept today was Kiev, Ukraine\u2013born guitarist Marko Topchii. In the nearly four years that I\u2019ve been closely following and reporting on the outcomes of classical-guitar competitions both large and small, his name has turned up over and over, often as the winner and sometimes as the second- or third-place contestant. But It wasn\u2019t until I looked deeper at his competition record over the past eight years that I got a true picture of the stunning magnitude of the 27-year-old\u2019s accomplishments in competitions: 41 first prizes (in 22 countries on four continents), 16 second prizes, and 18 third prizes, plus nearly two-dozen \u201cspecial prizes\u201d (audience awards, best interpretation prizes, etc.). Among those first prizes are such prestigious competitions as the Michele Pittaluga in Italy, the biennial Maurizio Biasini, the JoAnn Falletta Concerto Competition, the Changsha festival in China, the Segovia competition in Linares (Spain), and many others. I\u2019d be very surprised if you could find another guitarist who has logged more miles playing competitions; Topchii is virtually a \u201cprofessional\u201d competitor, in the sense that his competition prize earnings largely support his active competition lifestyle, at a point where many other guitarists have turned to teaching or concerts (or both) to make ends meet.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/span>his inveterate world traveler still calls Ukraine his home, but as fate would have it, when I went looking for him to conduct an interview about \u201cThe Competition Life,\u201d I found him living less than half an hour from my house: unbeknownst to me, he was finishing up the spring term at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he was studying intensively with Judica\u00ebl Perroy (who has become known as a molder of competition winners). On a lovely spring afternoon, we met in the Conservatory\u2019s striking central atrium, parked ourselves in a couple of comfy chairs, and talked for nearly two hours about the ups and downs of the competition world. Topchii\u2019s English is excellent (he started learning it when he was four), and I found him to be very candid and self-effacing. He\u2019s a serious young man\u2014though also funny and personable\u2014and he\u2019s given to deep thought about and analysis of his chosen path.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, when I turn on my recorder for our interview, one of his first points is about what he believes is a common misunderstanding about him: \u201cI think some people have a lot of prejudice toward you if you\u2019re a winner of a lot of competitions: \u2018Why are you still doing competitions? Why don\u2019t you have a career?\u2019 I recently found out that some people think I am sponsored for all my trips, which is not true. I have been funded by one foundation in Ukraine that helped me out on some trips, but most of the trips I\u2019ve had had to fund myself, basically trying to win to get funding for the next event.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It helps, too, that he has an extremely supportive family who have helped immeasurably on his long road. \u201cMy mom has a degree in classical piano and is also a composer. My father was a folk-instrumental ensemble conductor and worked with my mom on arrangements of the music they did together. And my aunt is a concert piano player. So, if I was doing something wrong in music, someone knew what to say,\u201d he says with a laugh. Topchii had already demonstrated some musical aptitude at the age of 4, and through his youth he studied both guitar and piano, and for a while he wondered if piano would win out: Intrigued by classical harmony, he adored Chopin and Liszt (among others), and of course piano was omnipresent in his household. At 16, however, he decided to concentrate on the guitar, which he says was \u201cnot that much of choice, because I was relatively unskilled on the piano and quite<\/i> skilled at the guitar.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0