Van Cliburn dies at 78; pianist who gave U.S. a Cold War victory

Van Cliburn, a young Texan, won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 and was given a hero's welcome back in the United States. He went on to a long and acclaimed career.

 

After a tense decade of air raid sirens, duck-and-cover drills and fears of Soviet superiority, hope for America came in an unlikely form in the late 1950s: a lanky, 23-year-old Texan with a head full of curls and huge hands that ranged across a piano keyboard with virtuosic power.
With his transcendent performances of Tchaikovsky's First and Rachmaninoff's Third piano concertos, Van Cliburn brought 1,500 Russians to their feet in a Moscow concert hall.

Collected from : http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/28/local/la-me-van-cliburn-20130227