At just 23 years old, Van Cliburn became the first winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, which has taken place every four years in Moscow since its founding in 1958. His historic victory—in the middle of the Cold War, just a year after the launching of the Sputnik satellite in 1957—was proof of the universality of classical music. Achieving worldwide success, Van Cliburn went on to pursue his career as a star of the international music scene.
During the competition, Van Cliburn's performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 was greeted with thunderous applause that lasted almost 8 minutes. The young musician performed for a jury of some of the Soviet Union's greatest musicians, including Shostakovich, Gilels, Richter, and Kabalevsky. Van Cliburn reminisced, "It was just incredible. I was more frightened by the jury than by the audience. But once the nervousness passed, I realized what a privilege it was to play for such a jury. Simplicity radiated out from them behind the complexity of this great music." Upon his return in 1958, he made the cover of Time Magazine as The Texan who conquered Russia. He is also the only classical musician that New York honored with a ticker-tape parade, an event normally reserved for national heroes.
Louisiana native Van Cliburn began studying piano at three years old with his mother, a former student of Arthur Friedheim, who himself had been a student of Franz Liszt. Cliburn later attended Kilgore High School, where he obtained a diploma in piano in 1951. At the age of 12 he debuted as a soloist with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, then attended New York's prestigious Juilliard School as a student of Rosina Lhevinne, with whom he developed a great mastery of the Russian Romantic repertoire.
At 20 years old he was awarded the Leventritt Foundation Prize in a unanimous decision by Rudolf Serkin, George Szell, and Leonard Bernstein, after which he made his notable debuts with the New York Philharmonic and at Carnegie Hall. He began to perform with prestigious American symphonic orchestras like those in Denver, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh. He recorded Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in collaboration with Kirill Kondrashin for RCA Records, an album that sold more than three million copies and went platinum. From 1960 to 1972, after his victory at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, Van Cliburn undertook numerous highly successful tours.
In 1962, the first Van Cliburn International Piano Competition took place in Fort Worth, Texas, created by the Van Cliburn Foundation. Decades later, it rivals the Tchaikovsky Competition in prestige for up and coming young pianists, serving as a viable launchpad to international renown.
