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Special to the Star-Telegram One year after his death, hundreds of items from the estate of Van Cliburn are going on sale at Christie’s auction house in New York. The pianist, who died in February 2013, filled his Westover Hills home with items encountered during his world travels — fine art, furnishings, tableware — and selected with a veteran collector’s eye. Two years ago, Cliburn parted with some of his most valuable treasures at a Christie’s auction of what was billed as “The Van Cliburn Collection.” That sale earned almost $4.4 million, beating a presale estimate of $3 million. The...

American pianist Van Cliburn, who awed Russian audiences with his exquisite Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff concertos and won fame and fortune back home, died on Wednesday at the age of 78. Cliburn passed away at his home in Fort Worth, Texas, after suffering from advanced bone cancer, his publicist Mary Lou Falcone told Reuters. Cliburn announced in August 2012 that he had been diagnosed with the disease. The lanky, blue-eyed Texan, who began taking piano lessons at the age of 3 and later trained at New York's prestigious Juilliard School, burst onto the world stage at the height of the Cold...

an Cliburn, the internationally celebrated pianist who grew up in Kilgore and whose triumph at a 1958 Moscow competition helped thaw the Cold War and launched a spectacular career that made him the rare classical musician to enjoy rock star status, has died. He was 78. Cliburn died early Wednesday at his Fort Worth home surrounded by loved ones following a battle with bone cancer, said his publicist and longtime friend Mary Lou Falcone. Cliburn made what would be his last public appearance in September at the 50th anniversary of the prestigious piano competition named for him. Speaking to the...

A half-century after meeting him, the Russian people still adore Van Cliburn. That was the message conveyed by Aleksandr S. Sokolov, the Russian minister of culture, and Yuri V. Ushakov, the Russian ambassador to the United States, during toasts at a black-tie dinner and musical tribute here on March 1. Sponsored by the Van Cliburn Foundation, the event commemorated the 50th anniversary of Mr. Cliburn’s victory in the first Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow in April 1958. Before nearly 1,000 guests in an elaborate 40,000-square-foot tent on the grounds of the Kimbell Art Museum, Mr. Sokolov read a message...

Allan Topol: June 8, 2005 Last weekend, I traveled to Fort Worth, Texas to attend the finals of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition -- the premier world contest for concert pianists. It was a welcome break from intensive research about China I had been doing as background for my next novel. The only problem was that I kept thinking about China while I was in Fort Worth. To start with, two of the six finalists were young women from China. One was a young woman from South Korea. The others were a young man from Russia and two from...

Alexei Sultanov's left hand doesn't play anymore, the result of a stroke, but the pianist was determined to perform America the Beautiful to celebrate his U.S. citizenship. So Tuesday morning, with his body buckled into a wheelchair and an American flag rising from behind it, Alexei called upon his wife, Dace, to play the left hand part. Together, as Alexei's right hand glided effortlessly over the keys, they drew out a stirring, delicate version of the patriotic hymn. Dace, a cellist, glanced every few notes at her husband and held back tears. "It's too emotional," Dace said afterward. "He's always...